The History of Scotland from Agricola's Invasion to the Extinction of the Last Jacobite Insurrection

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HISTORY OF SCOTLAND

THE

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND

FROM AGRICOLA'S INVASION TO THE

EXTINCTION OF THE LAST

JACOBITE INSURRECTION

BY

JOHN HILL BURTON, D.C.L.

HISTORIOGRAPHBR-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND

NEW EDITION

IN EIGHT VOLUMES
VOL. IL

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

1901

Ail Rights reserved

CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER XIV.

NARRATIVE TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER II.

PAGB

Inflaence of the Treaty of Falaise as a formal mrrender of inde-
pendence — Formal abandonment of its conditions by Richard
of England — Ecclesiastical discussions — ^Assertion of indepen-
dence by the Scots Church — Its position towards the king, the
Court of Rome, and the Church of England — Dedication of
Arbroath Abbey to Thomas k Becket — Death of Malcolm—
Succession of Alexander IL — Claims on the northern counties
of England — ^Treaty of Newcastle — ^Absolute estates given to
buy off these claims — General division bet^'een England and
Scotland completed — Attempt to adjust the exact inarches —
Contests in the outlying districts — ^Tragedy of the Bishop of
Caithness— Questions of the succession— Vestiges of an arrange-
ment with the Bruce family— Position of this and other Nor-
man houses — Difference of their influence on Lowlanden and
Highlanders — The Bysset tragedy arising out of this — Its
political consequences — Death of Alexander II., 1-19

. • . '

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XV.

MARRATIVB DOWN TO THE DEATH OP THE MAID OP NORWAY.

Alexander III. — His. boyhood — Influence of his mother, Mary
de Coucy — His inauguration as monarch, and the peculiar
ceremonies of the occasion — Great question of the anointing of
the Scots kings — ^Its connection with the claims of England
and of the Court of Rome — Fulfilment of Treaty of Newcastle
— Marriage of the young king with an English princess — ^The
question of homage — ^The rule in Scotland during the minority
— Factions of the collaterals looking forward to the succession
— Comyns and Durwards — Interference by the English king —
The islands, and their connection with Norway — Haco*s inva-
sion^-The battle of Largs — Its influence — Increase of terri-
torial power — Taxation of the Church — Bagimond's Roll —
Ecclesiastical councils — An ecclesiastical code — Tamperings
with the records of homage — Hopeful future of the country —
Disasters — Death of the king's daughter, the Queen of Norway
— Death of his son — His own death — Death of the heiress, the
Maid of Norway, ..... 20-49

CHAPTER XVL

PROGRESS OP THE NATION TO THE WAR OP INDEPENDENCE.

Topography— Boundaries of the country — The provinces — Capi-
tal towns — Minor territorial divisions — Sheriffs — Thanes —
Maarmors — Progress of feudalism — Older laws found in opera-
tion when feudalism began — The fictitious codes of old laws —
The Regiam Majestatem — Critical literature about it and other
early laMrs — ^Actual vestiges of the old laws — Local codes,
Lothian, Galloway, &c. — Pecuniary mulcts for offences —
Money value of the citizen — Comparison with the spirit of the
Roman jurisprudence — Influence of the spirit of neighbourli-
ness and common responsibility — Spirit of fairness and human-
ity—Specimens of andent laws — Ordeals— Battle — Rise and
influence of municipalities — Protection to liberty — ^No Magna
Charta, or Charters of the Forest— Such protective concessions
not required, • • • • • •50-77

CONTENTS. Vil

CHAPTER XVII.

PmOGRESS OF THE NATION TO THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

{Continued.)

The germs of Parliament — Its relation to the oldest laws — The
assemblages of national councils — Their consent to great
national acts — Rise of the burghal corporations — Different
grades of corporations — Power and wealth of the corporations
— They form a separate Parliament or council — Interior
economy of the burghs — Influence on progress of freedom —
Relations with foreign municipalities — The burgh franchise —
The exclusive privileges — Greatness of Berwick — ^ToWn dwell-
ings — Rural dwellings — Dwellings of the nobility compared
with the ecclesiastical buildings — No Norman castles — Mag-
nificence of the remains of Norman churches — Testimonies to
the wealth of the country before the breaking out of the war — ^
Commerce, agriculture, and rural economy, . . 78* ill

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

Narrative resumed — Doubts about the death of Queen Margaret
— ^A pretender in Norway burned at the stake — King Edward
and his position — Communications opened with him — The
preparations for the assemblage at Norham — ^The assemblage
and its elements — ^The notary public— King Edwaxd's address
— ^The assertion of superiority— The adjournment — Notice to
the clergy, nobility, and conmiunity to put in any objections
they have — How the nobility and clergy had nothing to say,
and the conmiunity were not listened to— The roU of com-
petitors — Exceptional daim of Florence, Count of Holland —
All comers heard— The narrowing of the leet— The competi-
tors finally limited to Bruce, Baliol, and Comyn— Their gene-
alogies and claims as descendants of the Earl of Huntingdon —
The meetings and discussions — ^The method of packing a joxy
for the decision — ^Adjournment — Doings apart — Examinatkui
and removal of records — Return of precedents ordered^ i la* 14*

viH CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIX.

ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUOCXSSION.

The assemblage resumed — A new claimant : Eric of Norway—
The question lying between Baliol and Bruce, and between
tlie distant descendant of the elder and the immediate descen*
'dant of the younger daughter — Indication of a leaning to the
former view — Continued pleadings — Resolution of the question
into the shape of litigation for an estate — ^This encouraged by
Edward as Lord Superior — The competitors admit all his
claims, and are ready to do homage — Questions of partition
and compromise opened and pleaded — Peculiar case put in for
the Count of Holland — ^The judgment in favour of Baliol —
Ceremonies of homage — Ceremonies of investiture in Scotland
— The new king's unpopularity and danger — Question how far
put under restraint — Litigations appealed from him to the
English Court — His humiliation — A crisis, • . 141-162

CHAPTER XX.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE BATTLE OF STI&UNO.

Edward's quarrel with France — The opportunity for Scotland —
Alliance between France and Scotland — The foundation of
what is called the Ancient League — Its importance in Euro-
pean histoiy-^Popular conditions of its adoption on the Scbts
side — Edward's return and invasion of Scotland — The siege of
Berwick— Baliol driven to renounce his allegiance — March
northwards — Edinburgh — ^The removal of the contents of the
royal treasury — Scone — Removal of the Stone of Destiny — Its
strange history before and after the removal — The Black Rood
of Scotland another acquisition — Its history — Edward's circuit
and collections of homages — Appearance of Wallace on the
scene — What is known of him compared with the legendary
history— His capacity as a commander and organiser — How he
gathered an army— His victor7 at Stirling Bridge, • 163- 192

CONTENTS. ix

CHAPTER XXI.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE BATTLE OP ROSLIN.

National influence of the battle of Stirling — Wallace's dealings
with the Hanse Towns — Raids into England on the east and
the west — Wallace's personal conduct — Protection to the monks
of Hexham — Becomes guardian of the kingdom — Edward's •
second great invasion — Si^e of Dirleton — Battle of Falkirk —
Disappearance of Wallace from history— Questions as to his
having gone to France and Rome — French and English di-
plomacy — France and Scotland balanced against Edward and
the Flemings — ^The question of the independence of Scotland
before the Court of Rome — A Papal emissary — His adventures
on the border — The curious case laid before the Papal Court
by King Edward — Active warfare resumed — The siege of Caer-
laverock — Its history a type of the sieges of the day — Battle of
Rotlin, ...... 193-218

CHAPTER XXII.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD.

The preparations for final subjugation— The march— The siege
of Stirling Castle — Incidents and influence of the siege —
Attempt at a moderate and conciliatory policy — Amnesties
— Wallace to be an exception — Notices of his movements —
His capture — Carried as a trophy to England — Peculiar policy
in the form of his trial — His execution — Its effect on his coun-
trymen — Organisation of Scotland — Incorporative union — Re-
presentatives of Scotland in a British Parliament — Revisal of
the law — ^The great ordinance of King Edward — Preparations
for an international Parliament at Carlisle — The national feel-
ing — Edward's ignorance of it — Bruce's flight from London to
Scotland — A new chapter in the war opened — Account of
Bruce's position and claims — His allies — The slaughter of the
Red Comyn — The enthroning of Bruce at Scone — Edward's
preparations — His march — His death* • . 219-246

^ CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXIIL

WAR OP INDSPKNDKNCE TO BANNOCKBURN.

Difficulties of the new king — Political position of the HighUnds
—Brace's wanderings and adventures — Acts of personal prow-
ess — Popularity — First germs of success— Contest with the
Comyns— Assistance of the clergy — ^Their influence, spiritual
and feudal — The oscillations of allegiance — Specimen of a
shifting bishop — Siege of Stirling by Bruce — English national
pride roused — Eagerness to do battle in Scotland — ^Collection
of a great army — Peculiar conditions of the coming contest as
fixed by the engagement to surrender Stirling — The position
of the Scots army — Its personal composition — How both
adapted to the occasion — ^The approach of the English hosts
— Bruce*s personal passage of arms — Randolph's skirmish —
Battle of Bannockbum« .... 247-271

CHAPTER XXIV.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE DEATH OP ROBERT BRUCE.

Effect of the battle of Bannockbum — A Parliament, and the
adjustment of the succession — ^The Braces induced to become
leaders of the Irish national party — Cause of the Irish seek-
ing them — The question of the independence again before the
Papal Court — Adventures of a cardinal emissary sent to Brace
— Recapture of Berwick — BafHed attempts of England to re-
cover it — Raid on England — A Parliament — The solemn ad-
dress to the Pope, and resolution to hold by independence — A
great invasion of Scotland again attempted — Its failure, and
the method of it — Revenge taken by raids on England — Suf-
ferings of the English people — Disaffection in the north —
Aid offered to Scotland — Intervention of the Pope — Invasion
of England — The treaty of Northampton — The death of
Brace, ...... 272-308

CHAPTER XXV.

NARRATIVE TO THE ACCESSION OP THE HOUSE OP STEWART.

Accession of David Brace — Edward Baliol and his claims —
Their harmony with those of the disinherited Norman barons
— Edward Baliol's invasion— Battle of Duplin — English in-

CONTENTS. Xl

▼asion — Siege of Berwick — Battle of Halidon Hillr-Edwaid
Baliol gives homage for Scotland — His successes and reverses
— Peculiar method in which Edward III.'s aid was remuner-
ated by territory in Scotland — English invasion — Connection
of Scotland with France — ^The field of enterprise there opened
to Edward III. — Consequent relief to Scotland — Gradual ex-
pulsion of the English — Sir Andrew Moray's regency — Battle
of Colbleen — ^Departure of Baliol — Demoralising influence of
this contest — Portion of southern Scotland retained by Eng-
land — ^The battle of Neville's Cross — Its influence — Capture
of King David — Political effects of his captivity — His ran-
som, and the sacrifices for it — ^An English invasion — ^Desecra-
tion of the religious houses — ^King David in Scotland — His
unsatisfactory conduct as a King of Scots — Secret arrangements
— Parliament and its proceedings, . . . 309-542

CHAPTER XXVI.

NARRATIVE TO THE DEATH OF ROBERT III.

Accession of Robert the High Steward — Adjustment of the sno-
oession — His dynasty called the House of Stewart — Genealo-
gical mysteries— Troubles in England — Scotland's profit in
tranquillity — Renewal of the league with France — Identity
of the interests of the two countries — ^A body of French
knights come to Scotland — What they saw there — A larger
body from France, brought by the Admiral John de Vienne
— Difference between French and Scots notions of war —
Difference between their notions of civil rights — Angry return
of the French — ^Their gift of arms to the Scots— Determina-
tion to invade England — ^A double invasion by the east and
the west — ^The Percjrs — Douglas — Passage at arms — The bat-
tle of Otterbum — Its fame and characteristics — ^Death of King
Robert — His son succeeds — His name changed from John to
Robert, with the reason — Battle by two bodies of Highlanders
on the North Inch of Perth — Difficulty in explaining it— In-
ternal effects of the long contest with England — An English
mvasion — Battle of Homildon — Richard II. of England, and
the question of his seeking refuge in Scotland— Death of Rothe-
say, the king's eldest son — Suspicions of foul play — His other
son, James, taken by an Ei^lish force on his way to France —
Ascendancy of Albany— Death of Kimc Robert III., . 343-384

Xfl CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXVII.

NAR&ATIVB TO THS DEATH OF JAMES I.

Accession of James I., a child, and captive in England—Re-
gency of Robert of Albany — Burning of Reseby, an English-
man charged with heresy — The Celtic population of the High-
lands and their rulers — Final struggle for supremacy between
Highlands and Lowlands — The battle of Harlaw— Its histori-
cal influence — ^The invasion of England, called the Fool Raid —
Death of R^[ent Robert, and succession of his son Murdoch
— ^The young King of Scots at the English Court— How
trained and tended there — His marriage — The French alliahce
— Scots auxiliary force sent to France — Their losses, services,
and rewards — Return of the king to Scotland^Prerogative no-
tions brought with him from England — His dealing with the
regent and the house of Albany — Contest with the Highlands
— French connection and alliances — England's command of
the narrow seas used against royal visitors between France and
Scotland — Serious aspect of home politics — Organisation
against King James— His unconsciousness of it — The Court at
Perth — Murder of King James there, . . . 385-4 ic

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JAMES II.

Fate of the murderers — An infant king — His coronation at Holy-
rood — Plots for his custody— Kidnapped by Crichton— The
house of Douglas — The chief brought to Edinburgh and put to
death — Effect of this — Secret source of the power of the house —
Connection with France — Conflict with the Crown — Influence
of the Crichton family — Mary of Gueldres — ^The Douglas band
— ^Tragedy of the Tutor of Bunby — Slaughter of the Douglas
in Stirling Castle — Gathering of the supporters of the house —
Preparations for civil war — The tiger Earl of Crawfurd — Battle
of Brechin — Great contest with the house of Douglas— Its over-
throw for the time — A Parliament, and its dealings with the
Douglases, and other matters — Influence of the Wars of the
Roses in England — Expedition to retake the territories cap-
tared by England — Siege of Roxburgh — Death of the king, 4 1 1 -435

THE

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,

CHAPTER XIV.

NARRATIVE TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER 11.

INFLUENCE OP THE TREATY OF FALAISE AS A FORMAL SURRENDER OF
INDEPENDENCE— FORMAL ABANDONMENT OF ITS CONDITIONS BY
RICHARD OF ENGLAND^ECCLESIASTICAL DISCUSSIONS— ASSERTION
OF INDEPENDENCE BY THE SCOTS CHURCH — ITS POSITION TO-
WARbS THE KING, THE COURT OF ROME, AND THE CHURCH OF ENG-
LAND — DEDICATION OF ARBROATH ABBEY TO THOMAS A BECKET—
DEATH OF MALCOLM— SUCCESSION OF ALEXANDER II.— CLAIMS ON
THE NORTHERN COUNTIES OF ENGLAND— TREATY OF NEWCASTLE —
ABSOLUTE ESTATES GIVEN TO BUY OFF THESE CLAIMS — GENERAL
DIVISION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND COMPLETED— ATTEMPP
TO ADJUST THE EXACT MARCHES— CONTESTS IN THE OUTLYING DIS-
TRICTS — TRAGEDY OF THE BISHOP OF CAITHNESS — QUESTIONS OF
THE SUCCESSION — VESTIGES OF AN ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BRUCE
FAMILY— POSITION OF THIS AND OTHER NORMAN HOUSES— DIFFER-
ENCE OF THEIR INFLUENCE ON LOWLANDERS AND HIGHLANDERS —
THE BYSSET TRAGEDY ARISING OUT OF THIS— ITS POLITICAL CON-
SEQUENCES—DEATH OF ALEXANDER II.

The much-desired infeudation of Scotland was now com-
plete, at least on parchment. In the great homage dis-
pute, on one side of it at least, -a perverse pedantry has
depended on ceremonies and writs instead of broad his-
torical facts ; as if all that a high-spirited people could
gain by ages of endurance and contest might be lost by

VOL. II. ' A

2 NARRATIVE.

a slip of parchment. But it is odd that these pedantic
reasoners should have overlooked how strongly this trans-
action bears against thenu If the Scots people really
were under feudal subjection to the Norman kings of
England, what need to create that condition by a hard
bargain with a prisoner ? Or, supposing that the condi-
tion had really been established, and the King of Scots
was a rebel, then the phraseology of the documents would
have undoubtedly shown as much, and would have
renewed or confirmed the past What the conditions
of the Treaty of Falaise do, however, is to create the
new condition of vassal and superior from their date.
They explain the opportunity, and certify the use it is
put to.

We may depend upon it, however, that the English
king and his advisers would by no means have been con-
tent to rest on pedantries. The^ would know that what
had been lost by one opportunity might be gained by
another, and care would have been taken by degrees that
Scotland should have had no opportunity of regaining
what she had lost. In feudal history such documents
merely make the way to possession. Some feudal observ-
ance has been neglected, something has been done on
which a quarrel may be picked ; and the overlord at last
reigns in the vassai's kingdom. Henry could not, per-
haps, hope in his lifetime to complete what he had begun ;
but when Scotland was a quiet province of Britain, ruled
by his successors, the merits of his dexterous policy would
be remembered.

But this consummation was not to be. In the year
1 189 Richard the Lion-hearted became King of England;
and one of his first steps was to restore the position of the
Scots kingdom by absolutely withdrawing what he de-
scribed as the conditions whtdi his father had extorted
from William by new deeds, and in consequence of his
captivity.^

* ** Quietavimits ei onmes pactiones quas bonus pater noster Henri-
cus Rex Angliae, per novas Cbartas et per captionem suam extorut**
S^ the 4Uchafge at letigfth in Uie Fcedera (Record edition), i. 50,

TREATY OF FALAISE REVOKED, 1 189. 3

Richard took an obligation for ten thousand marks as
the price of his discharge. But in whatever way we look
on the affair, it savours of his romantic spirit, since the
money would only go to help him in his crusading expe-
dition to Palestine.

The transaction by which the people of Scotland had
been brought formally under the same Norman yoke as
their English neighbours included their Church, but there
was a difference in the formalities of the two transfers.
The feudal subjugation was made as distinct and complete
as words could make it For the Church of Scotland, it
was to be so far subordinate to the Church of England as
it had been during the reigns of King Henry's predeces-
sors. Reading the sentence in which the ecclesiastical
conditions are regulated along with the carefully-studied
clauses for clenching the feudal supremacy, one cannot
help suspecting that the draftsmen of the documents, who-
ever they were, cared less for the ecclesiastical than the
feudal part of the transaction. This impression is not
lessened by our finding that there were present and
assenting some dignified officers of the Scots Church —
the Bishops of St Andrews and Dunkeld, the Abbot of
Dunfermline, and the Prior of Coldingham.^ Probably
just after the great k Becket affair King Henry was not
very anxious to aggrandise the power of the English
Church ; and though there were English ecclesiastics who
acted as witnesses, they were not, like those of Scotland,
made parties.

A Papal legate. Cardinal Petroleonis, held an ecclesias-
tical conference or council at Northampton in presence of
King Henry. In deference to so august a person, the
King of Scots was present, with the Bishop of St Andrews

with the title, " Littera Regis Angliae de Redditione Castrorum, &c ;
ct de restitutione omnium libertatum quas habuerunt Reges Scotice
ante captionem Regis Willelmi." It was set forth in the celebrated
pleading before King Edward, concerning the succession, that this
restoration by Kin^ Richard was illegal ; he could not dismember
the empire of which he was sovereign. — Palgrave's Illustrations»

22.

* Foedera (Record edition), i. 3a

4 NARRATIVE.

and five other bishops. They were formally required to
conform to the treaty, and acknowledge themselves subor-
dinate to the English Church. They denied on the spot
that there was any such supremacy over them. The
Archbishop of York specially asserted the old claim over
Glasgow and Galloway, and appealed to documents in
support of it ; but Jocelyn, Bishop of Glasgow, maintained
that he was under the direct authority of the Bishop of
Rome, and no other prelate could step between them.
While the Scots bishops chose so to assert themselves,
the English had no help for it, since they had lost their
former opportunity. King Alexander and his bishops had
been suppliants to them for the spiritual rite of consecra-
tion, having unpleasant doubts whether those who might
be called bishops among the Scots Culdees really were
commissioned to impart this sacred constitution. But
now the country had a body of thoroughly attested
bishops, who had every element of Catholic legitimacy,
and who could laugh at the claims of their English breth-
ren to reign over them. It happened, too, that the
English policy of dividing authority in the Church by a
double primacy was favourable to the Scots Church.
Canterbury and York quarrelled for authority over it.
The old tradition that Canterbury was supreme in Britain,
as the holder of the powers granted to St Augustine, was
revived. It was not in this instance asserted as an
authority over York, yet it touched that primacy on a
tender point. There was more at issue than the mere
local adjustment by which the one might be supreme in
the north and the other in the south. It was from York
that the Scots Church had got its spiritual title, and to
York, then, its allegiance as a group of suffragan dioceses
was due.

The Scots bishops, on their return, sent agents to
Rome. There they managed their business so well that
they returned with a bull from Pope Alexander III.,
which was a thorough triumph to the Scots clergy. In
high terms it rebuked the King of England for meddling
in matters spiritual by demanding concessions from the
Church of Scotland, and forbade York to demand suprem-

ECCLESIASTICAL DISPUTES, 1174-82. 5

key, or the Scots Church to concede obedience, until the
questions at issue were decided at Rome.^

A cardinal, Vivian Tomasi, was appointed legate from
Rome to take cognisance of the question. He had other
'business in hand, for he went to England, Ireland, and
the Isle of Man, where he asserted the influence of the
Church in a special shape by compelling the king of that
island to go through the ceremony of marriage with the
mother of his celebrated son, Olave the Black. It is said
that, as he passed through England, King Henry refused
him a passage northward until he made oath to do nothing
in prejudice of the English claims. He transacted busi-
ness with a council in Scotland, but nothing of a substan-
tial kind appears to have come of their deliberations.*^

But there was a more severe contest at hand between
the King and the Church, which threatened to throw
Scotland into such a sea of troubles as had just been vex-
ing England. There was a certain Joannes Scotus, Arch-
deacon of St Andrews, the nephew of the Bishop of
Aberdeen, and otherwise influential in the Church. On
the occurrence of a vacancy in 11 78 he was elected
Bishop of St Andrews by the chapter. The king having
destined this benefice for Hugo, his chaplain, put him in
possession of the temporalities, and managed to get him
consecrated. Joannes appealed to the Pope, who put
the matter into the hands of the legate Allexius. The
legate decided in favour of Joannes, and consecrated him
as bishop. A battle now began between the temporal
and the spiritual ami. The king banished Joannes, and,

^ Rcgistrum Episcopatus Glasg., i. 35 ; Statuta Eccles. Scot.,
Pref., xxxvi.

* •* Nothing more is known of the council than that it renewed
many ancient canons and enacted new ones. Some of them appeared
to have curtailed the immunities and impaired the revenues of the
Cistercians. The monks of Rievaulx, the mother of all the Scottish
abbeys of the order, sent a letter to the bishops of Scotland adjuring
them to repudiate . the statutes which their legate Vivian had made
against the brethren of Citeaux, and the dull dry page of the Cister-
cian Chronicle of Melrose sparkles into invective a|;ainst his rapacity
and violence." — Statuta Eccles. Scot., Pref., xxxvii.

6 NARRATIVE.

as it would appear, some of his supporters, out of Scot-
land, and the legate professed to lay the diocese of St
Andrews under interdict The afiair is spoken of so
lightly even by ecclesiastical writers, that it cannot have
been considered that the legate could effectually carry out
that awful sentence. The Papal Court was again called
on to interpose, and the device was adopted of giving
power to those who were asserting a spiritual authority
over the Scots Church. The Archbishop of York and the
Bishop of Durham were invested with legatine powers,
enabling them to excommunicate and interdict any per-
sons, lay or ecclesiastic, from the king and the bishops
downwards. They set to work with threats, and when
any one obeyed these he was punished by the civil power.
The quarrel was brought to a sudden stop by a change
at Rome. Pope Alexander died, and was succeeded by '
Lucius III., who disliked quarrels with the temporal
powers. There was an immediate adjustment, by which
Hugo got St Andrews, and his competitor was made
Bishop of Dunkeld.

It will be easily understood that King William the Lion
was no favourite with the ecclesiastical annalists who had
to record such transactions. The illustrious Welshman
Dubarri, better known as Giraldus Cambrensis, goes out
of his way to characterise him as a tyrant to the Church,
and in fact an imitator of the egregious abuses of the
Norman tyranny in England. Yet King William did an
act that should have endeared his memory to the ecclesi-
astical mind, and especially to that portion of it which was
then struggling for ecclesiastical supremacy over temporal
powers. He founded the great Abbey of Arbroath, en-
dowing it with estates and church patronages stretching
over distant districts of the countn'. The broken remains
of the great church of the abbey still testify to its magni-
ficence. But more remarkable even than the splendour
of the endowment was the method of its dedication.
Usually the memory of saints has been mellowed by
antiquity before they have become the object of such
dedications ; but King William devoted his great gift to
the memory of Thomas d Becket, whose blood had been

ARBROATH ABBEY, 1 1 78. 7

freshly shed. He was killed in 1170, his canonisation
was registered three years afterwards, and the Abbey ol
Arbroath was founded in 11 78. One cannot but believe
that this peculiar act was done under the influence of
some especial policy, though what it exactly was is not
clear. The simplest view was to hold that the king
desired to obtain a share in the blessings scattered about
by so eminent a martyrdom ; and an explanation equally
simple, but of another kind, was, that in their early days
he and Becket were friends and companions at the court
of King Henry.*

The reign of William the Lion lasted down to the year
1 2 14. In its latter years it was again animated by pro-
spects of mastering the Northumbrian and Anglo-Cumbrian
provinces, when King John of England was getting into
his troubles. William was able to defeat a design formed
by the English king to build a frontier fortress on the
English side of the Tweed, and both kings had for some
time armies menacing each other on the border, but not
coming to blows.

His son, Alexander II., who succeeded him, a youth in
his seventeenth year, inherited this border contest and its
hopes. There was an understanding between the young
King of Scots and the league of English barons, the end of
which was of course' to be the annexation of the northern
provinces to Scotland ; indeed they professed to put King
Alexander in possession of them. To maintain the acquisi-
tion a Scots army infested the district, and King John sent
a retaliative force, which penetrated into East Lothian.
Again there is, during the years 12 16 and 1217, the old
work of cruelty and devastation on both sides, with no-
thing to vary it, until at last the fate of the French invasion
put an end to the hopes of acquiring the border provinces
for Scotland. So lately as the year 1237, the claims on
the Northumbrian districts were discussed between the
crowns in a friendly and diplomatic form. The old demand

' " Ob familiarem amorem inter ipsum et Sanctum Thomam, dum
•dhtie in curia Regis Henrici esset, contractum."<^Chroiiio(m de
Lanercost, il.

8 NARRATIVE.

was made by King Alexander ; and Henry III. met it by
a proposal to give the King of Scots certain manors in
Cumberland and Northumberland, not in sovereignty, but
in feudal property. The offer was accepted as on the
whole advantageous to the Scots king, and a relief to the
people from hopeless attempts at conquest in a country
now strongly united with the central government of Eng-
land. Any reasonable adjustment putting an end to claims
on the northern counties was scarcely less a blessing on
the English side. The repeated invasions by the Scots
shook the country to its heart. It has to be noticed that
we have only the English side of the question in all matters
of dispute between the two nations, since all the annalists
of the period were Englishmen. They have to tell of the
King of Scots coming to do homage to the King of Eng-
land, as holding estates of him in feudal vassalage ; but
the tone of their narratives is as if they spoke of a formi-
dable neighbour coming to demand tribute. It is some-
what as the historians of the later Empire spoke of the
Franks, and as the French chroniclers spoke of the Norse*
men. They are rude barbarians, coming in all reverence
to the court of the civilised sovereign, yet they are objects
of uneasiness and alarm. For the estates and honours
given to bribe them they do humble homage, yet their
rapacity is not appeased — they are' not content with the
bribe — and again, in an aggressive humour, are crossing
the border and threatening their benefactor. The whole
story has a significant resemblance to the attempts of the
King of France to buy ofTand soothe the Norsemen, whose
chief professed all due homage in proper form, yet, accord-
ing to a common legend, took a sly opportunity to apply
his awkwardness in court fashions, so as to trip up the para>-
mount monarch in the course of the ceremony.

Apart fronv the question of bringing up the claims on
the 'northern counties, handing over the estates oh the
border to the King of Scots kept alive the policy of the
English court to have him coming there to do homage for
SQipething or other. This was perhaps the more desirable
that the, honour of Huntingdon had now gone to a coir
lateral — the descendants of Prince David, William the

ADJUSTMENT OF MARCHES, 1222-37. Q

. Lion's brother. The precision of old Anglo-Norman re»
cords enables us to know the exact nature of the new hold-
ings without letting us see the reasons why some arc so
.different from others. The King of Scots' estates in
Cumberland— such as Penrith, Scotby, Sowerby, and others
— were held as mere estates in homage, with the proper
fealty which the enjoyer of the reality of property had to
give for it to the sovereign. This acknowledgment had
nominally to be made every year, and the shape in which
the King of Scots had to make it was by delivering a falcon
at Carlisle Castle. Tyndale and other lands in Northum-
berland were held by simple homage, not in property, but
in regality or sovereignty, subordinate to the sovereignty
of England ; and here the King of Scots did not merely
draw rents and profits as a landlord, but admin istere<l
justice through his Justiciar.^ These English estates of the
Scots crown are referred to in subsequent documents as
" Tynedale and Penrith."

From this period the efforts to extend the Scots fron-
tier cease, and the people of the northern counties of Eng-
land got quietness for a time, and until they found them-
selves as part of England invading the inhabitants of the
coimtry whence they were so often invaded. The boundary
of the two kingdoms had now an opportunity of becoming
distinctly and permanently recognised. A few years earlier,
in the year 1222, we have a memorandum of the proceed-
ings of a joint commission to measure off the exact line of
the marches of the two countries. There were certain
knights of Northumberland on the English side ; on the
Scots the Justiciary of Lothian, with the Earl of Dunbar

^ Palgrave, Documents illustrating the History of Scotland, 3-6 ;
Jntrod., vi. vii. See also Documents illustrative of the History of
Scotland from the Death of King Alexander the Third to the Accession
of Robert Bnice, "selected and arranged hy the Rev. Joseph Steven-
son** ^published under the authority of the Lord Clerk Register),
2 vols. The first paper in this collection is an account *'of the Rents
and profits of the Lands and tenements in Tynedale lately belonging
to Alexander, King of Scotland, deceaseil. ** It is dated in 1286, the
year of his death. This is followed by a long succession of docu-
ments relating to the estates of the King of Scotland in the north o(
England.

lO ALEXANDER 11.

and other knights. The report of the affair to Henry II L
by his chief commissioner preserves the etiquette of equal-
ity between the contracting parties. He tells the King of
England how they met and exchanged courtesies, and then
tried if they could agree in tracing the boundary-line be-
tween his kingdom of England and the kingdom of Scot-
land. It seems to have been a partial attempt only, to
begin at Carham, which is now in England, and end at
Howdean, near Jedburgh. Six commissioners were chosen
on either side. As the six from Scotland would not con-
cur with the view taken by those of England, the joint
commission was recast, but again set to work without
success. They began at Reddenbum in the parish of
Sprouston, a feeder of the Tweed ; but when the English
proposed to trace by Hoperiglaw and Whitelaw, the Scots
would not follow them ; and the attempt was abandoned,
the English commissioners entering a protest that their
line was correct — and it certainly, in touching Whitelaw,
agreed with the line of the border as now laid down in the
Ordnance Survey. Whether there was any further attempt
at an exact tracing of the border line may be doubtful,
since in later negotiations we find allowance made for a
tract called the debatable land. But the record affords
evidence that the division between the two countries, as
it afterwards remained, had even at that time settled down
by usage, since the line which the commissioners are to
find is that of the ancient marches.^

The virtual adjustment of the boundaries of the two
kingdoms, bought as it was by England with a price, gave
peace for a time on the border, but the reign of the young
prince was amply troubled elsewhere. He inherited from
his father difficulties in many shapes as to the outlying
provinces, as they might be termed — those to which the
King of Scots professed a tide which he could rarely make
effective. He had not much authority north of the Tay,

^ **Qui rectam perambulationem facerent inter regnum vestruin
Anglise et regnum Scotise ; " and again, ** quod rectas et antiquas
marchias et divlsas inter regna pncdicta recognoscerent.'* — Royal and
other Historical Letters illustrative of the Reign of Henry HI., RoUs
edition, i. 187.

THE DISTRICTS, 1230-45. II

and the regions beyond the Moray Firth were still in the
hands of a representative of the old Maarmors sufficiently
strong to make war on the King of Scots. In the West
Highlands — the old patrimony of the race of Fergus —
there was a ruler whose title came from the conquests of
the Norsemen ; and the family which predominated in ,
Galloway asserted a sovereign position by overtures for
alliance with the King of England. This family had
murderous internal disputes; and when these ended in
the supremacy of one branch, its interest in the support
of the King of Scots was furthered by its head, Allan of
Galloway, becoming Lord High Constable, as the office
came to be called, of Scotland. It happened to his pos-
terity to have a closer connection with the destinies of
Scotland, from his daughter marrying the head of the
house of Baliol.

Of the untamed condition of the northern district there
had been a recent example in the fate of a poor bishop,
who was daring enough to attempt to become a spiritual
shepherd in distant Caithness. Harold, earl or king of
Orkney, had been driven from a settlement in Caithness,
which he determined to retake if he could. He arrived
with ships and men, and found the new bishop there in-
stalled. The bishopric was created by one of the sons of
St Margaret, and was therefore an assumption of authority
over the northern district by the King of Scots. Whether
on this account, or because the bishop attempted to levy
" Peter's pence," the earl was savagely enraged ; and find-
ing the bishop coming forth from his palace at Scrabster
on the west coast, seized him, and horribly mutilated him.
It is significant that this narrative comes from the Scan*
dinavian side, and would have continued to be doubted,
as it had been, were it not confirmed by Pope Innocent
III., better informed than the King of Scots about an
event in which the Church in Caithness was concerned.
He had been told of it, indeed, by the Bishop of Orkney,
who would feel an interest more acute than satisfactory in
such an affair; and Innocent, writing back in the year
1 202, acknowledges the substance of the news : " We
have learnt by your letters that Lombard, a la}TTian, the

12 ALEXANDER IT.

bearer of these presents, accompanied his carl on an ex*
j)edition into Caithness ; that there the earl's army stormed
a castle, killed almost all who were in it, and took prisoner
the Bishop of Caithness ; and this Lombard, as he says, was
compelled by some of the earVs soldiery to cut out the
bishop's tongue." The Church, having been so success-
ful with the great King Henry of England, was not likely
to spare this petty ruler, and precise articles of penance
were laid down for him. For fifteen days he was to walk
about conspicuously in his own territories with bare feet,
and only clothing enough for decorum, his tongue being
tied so as to hang forth from his mouth, while he suffered
the active discipline of the rod. He was then within a
month to set forth to Jerusalem, and there serve the Cross
for three years. AVhen all this, with some minor penalties,
was accomplished, he might be received within the bosom
of the Church.^ The Orkney earl, however, was not so
easily accessible as the King of England. We know only
that the penance was evaded. The affair tended to the
consolidation of the dominions of the King of Scots, for
it induced William the Lion to march northwards and
strike one more of the many blows which at last broke the
power of the rulers beyond the Moray Firth.

It must have been some time before the year 1 240 that
an event of national moment occurred, rendered mysteri-
ous by the way in which it came to the knowledge of later
times, since it is mentioned in none of the usual chronicles,
and is only known because, some fifty years afterwards,
the person chiefly concerned founded on it for the purpose
of accomplishing an object. It was brought up in the dis-
cussions about the succession to the crown in 1291 by
Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale. He asserted that
Alexander IL, despairing of issue, had brought the suc-
cession to the crown under the consideration of the pre-
lates, nobles, and good men of the country — of a parlia-
ment, such as there then was — and that the result was an

^ Orkneyinga Saga, 415 : Epist. Innocent III. ; and other authori-
tics cited. in "Two Ancient Records of the Bishopric of Caitbnea^'^
^Bannatyne Club, 1848.

THE NORMAN LEADERS, 1230-45. 1 3

arrangement that, if he died childless, Robert Bruce was
to succeed him as king, being the nearest male relation.^

The arrangement was not an unlikely one. Bruce was
a son of Alexander's cousin -gemian, the daughter of
David, ELarl of Huntingdon. He was then the only male
descendant of any daughter of Earl David,, though others
came afterwards and competed for the succession, as we
shall see.

The family of Bruce was one of the most powerful in
the north of England. It is one of the many Norman
houses illustrious since the Conquest, but not very easily
to be traced further back, though in this instance the
efforts to stretch the pedigree have been very vigorous.*

The house of Bruce was a fine type of those Norman
races in whose hands were the destinies of so many Euro-
pean communities. Why they should have been so loved
and courted, is one of the mysteries in the history of social
influences. What they were at the court of Edward the

* Bruce asserted that there were those alive who could testify to
the fact ; and although there were many exaggerations and falsehoods
in the pleadings of the competitors for the crown in 1291, it is difh*
cult absolutely to disbelieve such an assertion. There is no statement
of its having been contradicted on the notarial record of the discussion,
where it is distinctly minuted (see Foedera, Record edition, i. 777).
It is referred to in the fragments, discovered from time to time, of the
l)leadings and documents connected with the great competition ; but
in these, too, there is no trace of a contradiction. The occasion of
the affair was, it seems, Alexander's departure to a war in the Isles.
In the year 1249 he set off on such an expedition, and died on the
way. This cannot, however, have l)een the war referred to by Bruce,
for his statement is, that Alexander was in despair of having an heir
of his body — desperatis de htirede tie cor pore suo ; but when he went on
this expedition he left his son behind him. This son was born in
1 24 1, by his father's second marriage in 1239. — See Sir Francis Pal-
grave's Documents and Records illustrating the History of Scotland.

* Attempts have been made to bring the cradle of their race home
to Scotland, in Bruse, a son of the Earl of Orkney by a daughter of
an early Malcolm of Scotland, whose descendant went with RoUo to
France, and built the Castle of Brix. According to some Norse au-
thorities, however, Bruse was a son of Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, by his
nrst wife, while the daughter of Malcolm was his second (see vol. i.
p. 321). Few of the Norman nouses are so well worth tracing back-
i^aids, were there any chance of success in the pursuit

14 ALEXANDER II.

Confessor, they became in the courts of the Scots kings
from David downwards.*

In looking to the success of the Normans, both social
and political^ as a historical problem, it has to be noted
that we have no social phenomena in later times with
which this one could be measured and compared. Com-
ing from the rude north into the centre of Latin civilisa-
tion, they at once took up all the civilisation that was
around them, and then carried it into higher stages of
development. We have no parallel to this in later times.
Civilised communities have not found barbarians improv-
ing on them. If we were to see exemplified the pheno-
menon of the rude sea-rovers transformed after a couple
of generations into the courtly Normans, we must suppose
some of the barbarous races we have come in contact with
in America, Africa, or Australasia, becoming more civilised
than ourselves. There was in the case of the Normans
a preceding cause, however, apparently necessary to such
a phenomenon, but happily wanting in later times. The
barbarians were the invaders, not the invaded ; they were
from the beginning more powerful physically than the
civilised people whom afterwards they were to excel even
in civilisation.

Though neither was a sudden affair like the conquest of
England, yet their migration to France, and their migra-
tion to Scotland, were things as different from each other
as the rough sea-rover is different from the courtly knight

* Sir Thomas Gray, in his Chronicle, written early in the fourteenth
century, tells how William the Lion brought with him, when return-
ing to Scotland from his captivity, younger sons of the families to
whom he was indebted for courtesies, and now he endowed them with
lands. We cannot take the passage as precise statistics. We may
get more from it by counting it as the shape into which the chronicler
put the traditions of the migration of the great Norman houses to
S'^otland. In this view the list of names is instructive : ** II enprist
od ly en Escoce plusours dez fitz pusnes dez seygnours Dengleterre qi
ly estoient beinuoillauntz, et lour dona lez terres des autres qy ly
estoient rebelis. Si estoint ceaux dez Baillolfs, de Bruys, de Soulis,
et de Moubray, et les Saynclers ; lez Hayes, les GifTardis, les Rame-
says, et Laundels ; les Biseys, les Berkleys, les Walenges, lez Boysis^
lez Mountgomeris, lez Vaus, lez Colevyles, lez Frysei'S, lez GrameS|
lez Gourlays, et plusours autres." — Scalacronica, 41.

THE NORMAN LEADERS, 1230-45. 1 5

endowed with all the attributes of chivalry. One would
think that, looking to their history, they might have been
deemed dangerous guests. Yet the formidable qualities
that made them so, might be in some measure the reason
why they were courted. Perhaps there was a feeling that
protection was to be found at the hands of that mighty
race who were subduing all others unto themselves — such
a feeling as induces Oriental governments to attract Euro-
pean adventurers to their courts. Supreme in England,
and everywhere stretching the boundaries of their power,
il may have seemed a wise precaution against the aggran-
aising efforts of such potent neighbours to give them a
stake in the nationality of Scotland. Supposing this to
have been the policy which filled Scotland with Norman
adventurers, and gave them estates, titles, and ofhces, it
might seem to have been a sad failure at the time when
the most eminent of these Normans were competing with
each other to sell the independence of the country as the
price of wearing its degraded crown. Yet in the end it
was the descendant of the earliest and most highly fav-
oured of these adventurers that wrested Scotland from the
Plantagenet kings, and established in the country a per-
manent national government.

The Normans were by no means popular throughout
the country. We have seen that on the death of Malcolm
III., their first patron, a change of dynasty was almost
effected upon the policy of driving them out In some
places they were long unwelcome. An English chronicler,
generally well informed, tells how the wild men of Gallo-
way, whom we have seen so eager to be let loose on the
Normans at the Battle of the Standard, when they returned
home from that affair, put to death all the French and
English strangers they could lay hands on. They took
the opportunity of the king's captivity to rid themselves
at the same time of the representatives of royalty ; but as
to these they were content to drive them out of their
country.^ It tends to confirm this story, that the Nor-

^ *' Statim expulerunt a Galueia omnes Ballivos et custodes quos
Rex Scotise eis imposuerat, et omnes Anglicos et Francigenas quoi
apprehendere poterant inteifecerunt" — Benned. Ab.

X6 ALEXANDER II.

man adventurers were shy of Galloway as a suitable place
of settlement, and the absence of names belonging to their
race among the early landholders there, has been noticed
as cohspicupus.*

Among the Irish Celts of the western and central High-
lands, on the other hand, this policy of planting Norman
setders appears to have been very effective. It is a pecu-
liarity of these races that they must have leaders — ^they
cling to the institution by a law of their nature ; and if the
desired dictator and guide do not come in one shape, they
will take him in another. This was a disposition exactly
adapted to the Norman feeling of superiority and com-
mand. Accordingly, we find that, when these adventurers
got themselves established, they rallied round them de-
voted clans of followers, who looked up to them as their
natural leaders and commanders. An incident occurred
in the year 1242 which showed the tendency of such con-
nections, and had an important influence on subsequent
events. The house of Bysset had great possessions in the
Highland country around Loch Ness. In the year 1242
there was a tournament near Haddington, where some of
the family of Bysset, with their followers, were present.
It so happened that one of them was unhorsed by the
young Lord of Athole. Speedily afterwards Athole was
slain, and the house in Haddington where he abode was
burned : it was probably built of wood, according to the
practice of the period. The Byssets could not clear them-
selves from this unchivalrous deed- It was, indeed, clearly
the doing of their followers ; and Highland history shows
as that, in times far later, it was impossible to restrain the
vengeance of such followers when insult or injury was
done to their leaders. Of any such law of chiyalry as that
which contemplated conflict without deadly malice, and
permitted a victor to live if he could be slain, they could
form no conception. A strong feeling set against the
Byssets. Their estates had to be forfeited, and the head
of the house escaped alive with great difficulty. The
family afterwards pushed their fortunes with the othei

* Innes's Sketches, 961

THE NORMAN LEADERS, 1230-45. 17

Norman houses in Ireland, and their Highland estates
went to the Frizelles or Frasers, who founded an influence:
which became troublesome to the government five hun-
dred years afterwards.

In the mean time the head of the Byssets found refuge
at the court of King Henry III. Here, as the chroniclers
tell us, he maintained that he had a right to appeal against
the forfeiture to the English king as lord paramount of.
Scotland. In all such questions, great or small, it is well
known that the raising of a practical point has an immense
influence in bringing wide questions of principle to a bear-
ing. This eminent leader, pleading his practical griev-
ances of condemnation by a sort of ostracism and the for-
feiture of his estates, was supposed to have gone far in
impressing on the English court the policy of practically
asserting the superiority over Scotland. Something was
said at the same time about the Scots king encouraging
English traitors and enemies of the English Ifing. It is
difficult altogether to find sufficient immediate cause for
what occurred in 1 244, just two years after the affair of the
Byssets. A great English force then marched to the border
and menaced Scotland, while a Scots army was mustered
for the defence of the country. It amounted, if we may
believe the chroniclers, to above a hundred thousand men,
and passed over the border into English ground.
' This hostile array on both sides is all Uie more unwel-
come a difficulty, that we are told by the chroniclers how,
two years earlier, when King Henry was called abroad, he
left his close friend, the King of the Scots, in charge of
the border districts, — those very territories which the kings
of the Scots had been for centuries striving to bring under
their own dominion. It has been supposed that there
was some foreign element of anxiety or umbrage to the
English king arising out of Alexander's second marriage,
when he took to wife Mary de Coucy, a lady who figures
more in her son's reign than her husband's. But the alli-
ance itself could not have been the direct cause of offence,
for it was now five years old, dating in 1239.

Whatever may have been the cause of the demonstra-
tion, it was insufficient to incite to blows. If the Scots

YOU II. B

1 8 ALEXANDER II.

king was at the head of so large and well found a force af
the chroniclers speak of, there was on the other side ac
element new to an English army, and not, perhaps, one
productive of much confidence on the eve of a battle.
To pttt to use the new acquisitions of the English kings,
bands of the Irish were brought over under their native
chiefs or kings, and we find King Henry with all solem*
nity recording his thanks to some twenty of these, with as
near an approach to their proper designations as the Nor-
man scribe could accomplish.^

Thus there was no fighting, and the sovereigns came to
terms in the " Treaty of Newcastle." In its adjustment,
no reference seems to have been made to homage on the
part of the King of England, or to possessions south of
the border on the part of the King of Scotland ; but each
engaged not to abet the enemies of the other, and not to
make war on the territories of the other without just pro-
vocation. From the tone of the chronicles it might be
inferred that King Henry found his army averse to a con-
test ; that the spirit of the Englishman prevailed over that
of the Norman aggressor ; that there was a friendly feel-
ing towards the Scots ; and, in short, that the army could
not see a legitimate ground of quarrel. Another consid-
eration which may have rendered restraining councils the
less unwekome to the Norman mind is suggested by sub-
sequent events. If conquest was the object, Wales afforded
a more likely field for the employment of Henry's army ;
and at all events, a cruel war there immediately followed
the demonstration on the Scots border.

Alexander II. died in the year 1249, in the small barren
island of Kerrera, which fronts the Bay of Oban. He was
there on an expedition to extend, partly by negotiation,
partly by force, the authority of the crown of Scotland
over these islands and northern districts, which, so far as
they were not in the hands of independent local rulers,
held rather of the King of Non^^ay than the King of Scots.
Alexander boasted that he would set his standard on the
cliffs of Thurso, a threat inferring that it was to wave

* K«dera, 7th July 1344.

HIS DEATH, 1249. 19

over his enemy's ground rather than his own ; and John,
son of Duncan, King of the Isles, was induced to visit and
negotiate with the King of Scots, but only after obtaining
hostages for his personal safety. But John found in the end
that it was his safer policy to hold by Norway, which had
still the command of the seas. These incidents, personal
to King Alexander II., and his death, belong to trans-
actions connected with the completion of Scotland as a
separate kingdom so important as to deserve a separate
narrative.

20

CHAPTER XV.

NARRATIVE DOWN TO THE DEATH OF THE

MAID OF NORWAY.

ALEXANDER III.— HIS BOYHOOD— INFLUENCE OP HIS MOTHER. MAKY
DE COUCY — HIS INAUGUKATIUN AS MONARCH, AND THE PECULIAR
CEREMONIES OF THE OCCASION— GREAT QUESTION OP THE ANOINT-
ING OP THE SCOTS KINGS— ITS CONNECTION WITH THE CLAIMS OP
ENGLAND AND OF THE COURT OF ROME— FULFILMENT OP TREATY
OP NEWCASTLE — MARRIAGE OP THE YOUNG KINO WITH AN ENG-
LISH PRINCESS — THE QUESTION OF HOMAGE— THE RULE IN SCOT-
LAND DURING THE MINORITY— FACTIONS OF THE COLLATERALS
LOOKING FORWARD TO THE SUCCESSION— COMYNS AND DURWARDS
— INTERFERENCE BY THE ENGLISH KING — THE ISLANDS, AND
THEIR CONNECTION WITH NORWAY— HACO'S INVASION— THE BATTLE
OP LARGS— ITS INFLUENCE— INCREASE OF TERRITORIAL POWER-
TAXATION OF THE CHURCH— BAGIMOND'S ROLL— ECCLESIASTICAL
COUNCILS — AN ECCLESIASTICAL CODE — TAMPERINGS WITH THE
RECORDS OF HOMAGE — HOPEFUL FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY— DIS-
ASTERS— DEATH OF THE king's DAUGHTER, THE QUEEN OF NORWAY
—DEATH OF HIS SON— Hlb OWN DEATH— DEATH OF THE HEIRESS,
THE MAID OF NORWAY.

Alexander II. left a son who succeeded him, with the
title of Alexander III. He was not eight years old when
the succession opened to him. There was no attempt
to compete with his claim ; and here was another in-
stance, following that of Malcolm IV. at an interval of
nearly a century, to show that there was a principle of
hereditary stability in the succession to the crown. His
mother came of a remarkable stock. Alexander II.'s
union with Joan of England had been unfruitful, and soon
after her death in 1239 he took to wife Mary, daughter of
Enguerand de Coucy. This family specially represented

THE king's INAUGURATION, 1249. 21

the spirit of chivalry. It was not very ancient, nor did it
ever boast of great territories. It was the time when the
Knights Templars and other orders were developing here
and there into powers of a corporate character, which
rivalled those of territorial monarchs. The boastful motto
of the De Coucys, expressing their pride in the rank which
they maintained in this order or caste, is well known. ^
This family had brilliant alliances. Enguerand had for
his brother-in-law the Emperor Otho IV. And now his
daughter was a queen. She was a woman with a will of
her own, and helped by her activity and influence to pro-
tect her son from the' dangers around him, and to shape the
policy of the rule that had to be exercised in his name.

If we are to adopt what we are told by Walter Bower,
writing nearly two hundred years afterwards, we find the
royal boy crowned at Scone with great pomp, the dignified
clergy and great feudatories of the crown attending.
Mantled, sceptred, and crowned, he was seated on the
mysterious Stone of Destiny, in front of the altar, at the
east end of the church of Scone. Then occurred a pecu-
liar episode. A venerable, white -bearded man of the
Highland tribes, clad in a scarlet cloak, came fonvard, and
recited in his own tongue the genealogy of the young king.
When repeated in modern books, this incident looks like
a dramatic decoration ; but those acquainted with such
writers as Bower will feel that he would not have recorded
it without strong reasons for believing in it. It was not
an incident congenial to historical ideas in his day and
among his class. The Celt had then sunk far down in
the scale of estimation ; and to the Lowland churchman
of the fifteenth century the Highland seer was as unlikely
a participator in state ceremonials as the Indian medicine-
man might be to the New-Englander of the eighteenth
century. It is the oddity of the affair that seems to have
struck the chronicler ; and, on the whole, it is likely to be
more accurate than the other specialties described by him.'

* " Roi ne suis, ne prince aussi ;
Je suis le Sieurde Courcy."

* There can be no doubt that the description (Scotichron,| s. 2f

22 ALEXANDER ITT.

Perhaps the secret why the chronicler is so picturesque
and circumstantial about the coronation of the young
king is, because it came to be connected with some curi-
ous questions about the inauguration of a king of Scots.
There stands on record a courteous letter to King Henry
of England by Pope Innocent IV., professing to be an
answer to Henry's earnest request that the Pope would
take steps to prohibit the anointing and crowning of the
young King of Scots, because he was the liege vassal of
the King of England. The Pope tells him not to be iur«
prised at the refusal of such a request, as there was no
precedent for compliance with it. At the same time, the
King of England might be assured that the Court of Rome
would take no steps likely to interfere with the royal
dignity of a sovereign.^

It IS at first sight difficult to understand how Henry
could expect his request to be of any use, for Innocent's
letter is dated in 1251. The young king was crowned,
according to the chronicles, on the 13th of July 1249,
six days after his father's death.

Skene's edit, 294) applies to a Highlander. He is **quidam Scotus
venerabilis . . , quamvis silvesUr et nwntanus honeste tatnen pro
modo suo indutus." He speaks materna lingua^ and there is an at-
tempt to report the commencement of his address, thus : " Benach de
Re Albanne Alexander, Mac Alexander, Mac Vleiham Mac Henri
Mac David, &c«, quod ita sonat Latiney Salve Rex Albanorum Alex-
ander Fill Alexandri Filii Willielmi," &c. The genealogy is carried
hack into remote fabulous ages ; and this portion of the episode is
less credible than the rest, as there is reason to believe tnat these
very ancient genealogies of the kings of Scots were the creation of the
chronicler's own day. Scone is near the Highlands, and the appear-
ance there of a mountaineer could not be very wonderful at any time,
or, indeed, worth notice. In this instance, however, it forced itself
on the chronicler's nqtice by the important and unusual function per-
formed. The story suggests the probability that the Celts still retamed
a stronger position in the counti7 than the ordinary annals give them,
because these were written in later times, when the Celt had become
a creature to be hunted off the eanh. Had we earlier authentic
chronicles, we would doubtless know more of the steps by which the
predominant race of the Dalriadic Scots sank into what they after-
wards became^ It is observable that Lord Hailes does not stoop to
mention the episode of the Highland sennachie. Highlanders had
not become fashionable in his age.
* Foedera (Record edition), i. 277.

THE KING'S INAUGURATION, 1249. 23

But was this a coronation of the solemn kind which
King Henry desired to defeat? Was King Alexander
crowned and anointed with the ceremonies authorised at
Rome? The anointing of kings, according to the tradi-
tion of the scriptural usage, was one of the influences
made available for diplomatic purposes by the Court of
Rome. Many kings were strong enough to hold their
own without it, yet it gave a tone of respectability and
solemnity to the rule of those who got it, and thence was
much coveted. Its extension in any new direction was
ever a matter of grave consideration, in which the im-
portance of admitting a new member among the ecclesi-
astically sanctioned monarchs must be weighed against
the displeasure and jealousy of those already included.
Properly, indeed, to be anointed was the sole privilege of
the Emperor, as holding civil jurisdiction over the Chris-
tian world co-ordinate with the Pope's spiritual jurisdic-
tion. But other monarchs came to be more powerful
than the £mperor. So the kings of England and France
were admitted to the privilege, along with the King of
Jerusalem, whose position gave him peculiar claims.
There are traces of the anointing having been twice re-
quested for Alexander II., and twice refused ; and it does
not appear to have been conceded to Alexander III.
That a crown came to be used when a king of Scots was
inaugurated, is shown by the appearance of such an article
from time to time as a valuable piece of property. But
it appears that a full coronation, in the ecclesiastical sense
of the term, was not conceded to any king of Scotland
earlier than David, son of Robert the Bruce. ^ It is cer-
tain that in the great pleadings held before King Edward
I., when he asserted his claim as Lord Paramount of
Scotland, it was put as a material point that the King of
Scots was never anointed. Indeed it was said that the

^ See in the Notes on the Preface to the Statuta Ecclesise Scoti-
canse, p. xlviii. H seq,^ a very curious critical examination of the
accounts of the inauguration of the kings of Scots, tending to the
conclusion that the phraseology of the chroniclers is influenced by
their sense of the imperfectness of the ceremony, as wanting the
ecclesiastical element

24 ALEXANDER ITT.

ceremony of his installation was less solemn than that o(
the Prince of Wales, who was decorated with a garland,
and placed on his throne by bishops.^

After the young king's inauguration, the next step was
to give eflfect to a condition in the Treaty of Newcastle,
by which he \vas to become the husband of the English
princess Margaret. King Henry took care that this
should not be long delayed, and they were married at
York on Christmas-day in the year 125 1, The Arch-
bishop of York performed the ceremony, and had the
responsibility of entertaining the illustrious guests. The
King of England was there, so was Mary de Coucy, the
mother of the young king, with a great foreign attend-
ance ; and few affairs in that age were surrounded with
more lustre than tlie marriage of these two children. We
have it on the authority of the English chronicler,
Matthew Paris, that the young king went through the
form of homage for his English estates, Penrith and
Tyndale; that Henry demanded of him homage for
Scotland also, and that he made answer that this affair,
on which he had not consulted with his proper advisers,
the notables of his realm, was too importa!nt to be dis-
cussed on a festive occasion like the present Further,
that King Henry, unwilling lo disturb the harmony of the
meeting, pressed the matter no further, but kept his own
counsel. This is briefly told by Matthew as if it were a
small matter, and his authority for it as an actual occui>

* Chronicles of St Albans, Rishanger, 339. It was argued from
this that Wales was a fief of the English crown, a grade higher than
Scotland in feudal dignity.

If King Henry's protest against the anointing was concocted with
an intention to assert a claim as lord paramount over the minor king,
it is significant that he made no actual attempt to assert such a posi-
tion. Nothing was more firmly fixed in feudal practice at that
})enod than that the superior held the fief during the vassal's minority.
Henry never exercised this right of a superior, and in any other shape
than the letter of Innocent there is no vestige of his having professed
such a right. Indeed he took up a position quite inconsistent with
the functions and position of a lord paramount It fell to him, as
we shall see, to interfere a good deal in the affairs of the country, and
in doing so he styled himself '* Principal Councillor to the illustrious
King of Scotland."

QtJESTION OF HOMAGE, 1257. 2$

f^ncc must just go for what it is worth. ^ It may be said,
however, that King Henry had far more Hkely opportu-
nities for pushing the question of the feudal superiority,
but that his whole line of ostensible conduct was that of
one who sought to influence the Government of Scotland
as the father-in-law of the boy-king, rather than of one
desirous of accomplishing the subjection of the country.

Any attempt to go into the details of the manner in
which the country was ruled during this king's minority
must of necessity become confused, because it is filled
with intrigues and counterplots and efforts of personal
ambition, while neither can the actors nor the policy they
pursued be brought out so distinctly as to enable us to
take an interest in them. A boy on the throne, with no
brother or other near heir, was a condition which naturally
stimulated collateral relations to take up a position for
prompt action should an opening occur* It happened
that there was a cluster of such collateral relations, all
ambitious Norman barons, with possessions both in
England and Scotland. Their several genealogical stand-
ings will have to be noticed afterwards when their claims
come up in a practical shape. Meanwhile the most
powerful among them was a member of the great family of
Com}Ti, who held many honours and large estates. Op-
posite to this influence stood that of Durward the Jus-
ticiar. He was married to an illegitimate daughter of
Alexander IL He was accused of an intrigue of an ex-
tremely significant character in the possible fruit it might
bear if successful : this was a negotiation with the Pope
to legitimate his wife, and make her the next heir to the
throne. That he tried to accomplish such a project will be
seen more than once coming up in the disputes about the
succession to the crown which became so momentous to the
country. Durward's party, which was favoured by England,
seized the Castle of Edinburgh, and, according to their owa
phraseology, ** liberated '* their young sovereign from sub-
jection to the Com)ms. Just after this event, in the
year 1255, King Henry, who had sent emissary after emi*

^ Edit. 1644 (by Wats), p. 555, Giles's translation, il 4691.

26 ALEXANDER III.

sary into Scotland, thought it necessary to come himself,
attended by a considerable force. He met the young
king at Roxburgh, and before he turned southwards ad-
justed the government of Scotland to his satisfaction.
The seizure of Edinburgh Castle, however, had set a pre-
cedent often followed in Scots history — ^that of kidnap-
ping a monarch and ruling in his name. The party of
the Comyns was strengthened by the arrival in Scotland
of the king's mother with her second husband, John de
Brienne, son of " the King of Jerusalem." The party
were strong enough to seize the king at Kinross, and
along with him they got possession of a movable, then
but of recent appearance, but gradually becoming a
symbol of important powers — the Great Seal of the king-
dom. This was in 1257. Soon afterwards the Comyns
lost their leader, the Earl of Monteith. Whether from
this event or not, a regency was formed, which did not
look so dangerous as to demand the interference of King
Henry, who seems for some years to have let the country
alone. In the year 1260, in critical domestic circum-
stances, the young king and queen visited the court of
King Henry ; and here, in the same year, a daughter was
bom to them, named Margaret, and destined to be an
important personage in Scots history.

Three years afterwards there was a memorable invasion
of Scotland by the King of Norway. It was the conclud-
ing act in the career of the Norsemen or Danes in Scot-
land, and affords an opportunity for resuming the history
of their connection with those outlying provinces which
finally became incorporated into Scotland. We have seen
how the Norsemen had established a central power in
Dublin, so strong that it appeared likely to become the
capital of a great sea- empire in the north. We have
seen that the prospect of an empire on the waters gradu-
ally faded as the descendants of those who lived and
fought upon the sea peopled the British Isles and other
habitable districts of the north. The chief of the " Ost-
men " in the south-east of Ireland gradually merged into a
dynasty of monarchs. They were called the Hy Ivar, or
descendants of Ivar^ carried back by the dynastic spirit

THE NORSEMEN AND THE ISLES, IXOO-X263. 2/

of the Irish annalists to an ancestry in 'Uhe royal race
of Lochlin." The Hy Ivar had their relations from time
to time with the chiefs of Scandinavian origin nearer Scot-
land, but all chance of a united Norse empire stronger
than the power of the kingdom of Scotland was at an end.
In Irish history, the supremacy of the Ostmen comes to an
end in a notable historical climax. In the great battle of
Clontarf in 1 1 13, when the mighty Brian Boroom, the hero-
king of the old Celtic race, was killed, his cause prevailed,
and Ireland was entirely restored to the command of the
native Irish sovereign, Dermot Mac Malnembo. It is a
peculiarity, however, of battles in Ireland, that while in
the heroic narrative of the historian they have suddenly
made an empire out of chaos, there is no perceptible differ-
ence in the actual condition of the country ; and the Ost-
men appear to have held after the battle their old position,
and to have retained it until the invasion of Ireland by
men of the same race from England.^

Coming nearer to the Scots kings' dominions, we find
at the beginning of the twelfth century the great Mag-
nus Barefoot reigning supreme in Man and the islands
of the west. He was a monarch of sufficient power to
hold diplomatic relations with the King of Scots, and a

^ The most valuable commentary on the history of Ireland during
this period, and on the relation of the Irish ** Ostmen '' to the other
Scandinavian colonists in the British Isles, is in the late Dr Henthom
Todd*s Introduction to 'The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill/
His general conclusion is thus given : ** The Norsemen of Ireland
were not seriously affected in their position by the victory of Clontarf.
They retained their hold of the great seaports, and the Irish annals
for some time continue to record the usual amount of conflict between
them and the native tribes. We read, however, of but few new inva-
sions ; and the design of forming in Ireland a Scandinavian kingdom,
which seems to have influenced such men as Sigurd of Orkney and
the Viking Brodan, was certainly abandoned. 1 he national distinc-
tion between the Irish and the Danes, however, continued until after
the Anglo-Norman invasion ; the Danes then, in several places, sided
with the native chieftains, but in many instances they appear to have
' recognised in the new-comers a common origin. In the seaport
towns especially, a common interest produced alliances by which the
peculiarities of the two races were at length softened down, and both
ipere at length confounded by the Irish under the same gcseric name
of GAiLt^ or foreigners." — P. cxcix.

28 ALEXANDER III.

very formidable neighbour. It is told in the Sagas that
:he claimed the Mull of Kintyre as one of his islands, and
in a spirit of menacing jocularity had one of his vessels
dragged across the isthmus of Tarbert, he sitting at the
helm.* The inhabitants of thes6 islands appear to have
been still, and to have continued for generations after-
wards, a wealthy community, Hke all the others that
retained any remnant of the enriching influences of the
sea-rovers of old.^

Magnus was afterwards killed in an effort to restore
the Norse influence in Ireland. He left his son' Sigurd
as ruler of the Isles; but when he went to succeed his
father as King of Nonvay the colony broke up again
into separate independencies, the respective histories of
which cannot be pursued to any instructive effect. There
was a general division of the whole into Nordureyer or
Norderies, and Sudureyer or Suderies, the northern and
southern division. The dividing-line was at the Point of

' ^^unch, Chron. Man, 66.

' Tlie following passage is from a book of small bulk, but full of
learning and intelligence, the Geographical Illustrations of Scottish
History, by David Macpherson (mes) : " Under the government of
these Norwegian princes the Isles appear to have been very flourish-
ing. They were crowded with people ; the arts were cultivated, and
manufactures were carried to a degree of perfection which was then
thought excellence. This comparatively advanced state of society in
these remote isles may be ascribed partly to the influence and instruc-
tions of the Irish clergy, who were established all over the island be-
fore the arrival of the Norwegians, and possessed as much learning as
M'as in those ages to be found in any part of Europe, except Constan-
tinople and Rome ; and partly to the arrival of great numbers of the
provincial Britons flying to them as an asylum when their coiuitry was
ravaged by the Saxons, and carrying with them the remains of the
science, manufactures, and wealth introduced among them by their
Roman masters. Neither were the Norwegians themselves in those
ages destitute of a considerable portion of learning and of skill in the
useful arts, in navigation, fisheries, and manufactures ; nor were they
in any respect such barbarians as those who know them only by the
declamations of the early English writers may be apt to suppos4
them. The principal source of their wealth was piracy, then esteemed
an honourable profession, in the exercise of which these islanders laid
all the maritime countries of. the west part of Europe under heayy
contributions."

THE NORSEMEN AND THE ISLES, 1 100-1263. 2g

of Ardnamurchan, the most westerly promontory of the
mainland of Scotland, so that lona was included in the
Suderies.^

About the close of the twelfth century, a chief or king
named Somerled is found exercising a wide but undefined
authority both in the Islands and that part of the western
mainland which formed the territory of the ancestors of
the Scots kings.' He was the husband of the daughter
of Olave, who had succeeded to power as the representa-
tive of the race displaced for a time by the visitation of
Magnus and the succession of his son. Of Somerled's
own origin there is no distinct account He is said to
have been of Celtic family, and the power to which he
raised himself is supposed to have brought the Celts of
these districts under the paternal influence of rulers of
their own race, by a reaction or a successful revolt against
the Norse oppressors, such as that which the Irish claimed
from the battle of Clontar£ For this, however, there
seems to be no authority, and he was probably an able
and successful Viking.* Somerled, as we have seen, pa-
tronised the pretender to the Maarmorship of Ross, and
invaded Scotland in his behalf. Through conflicts of
various kinds he became to be, if not the sovereign of the

* Hence the English bishopric of Sodor and Man — Sodor being the
southern division of the Scots Hebrides, and not then part of any
Englbh diocese. In its earlier days the bishopric would be under the
primacy of Drontheim. The Bishop of Sodor and Man has no seat
in tlie House of Lords, owing, as it is commonly said, to Man not
having become an Ejiglish possession when bishops began to sit as
lords by tenure.

• The latest sea-fight in the old Viking spiiit in the neighbourhood
of the Scots coast is connected with his career. It was fought in the
vear 1156 with Godred, who represented the reigning authority in
Si an itself, while Somerled commanded in the other islands. — Chron.
Man, A.D. 1 1 56.

'In the Sagas a '' Sumarlad " is mentioned as a brother of Einar
and Bruse, the two competitors for power in Orkney, mentioned
above (vol. i. p. 321). — Munch, Norske Folks Historic, b. 649. The
name occurs among the colonists of Greenland — ibid., 363. It has been
del ived from old Norse, meaning "a summer stranger," as if it pointed
to an unwelcome visitor appearing occasionally at the season most
appropriate for Viking expeditions.

30 ALEXANDER III.

Isles and of Argyle, certainly the holder of the chief power
over these districts. Altogether, however, both in his
origin and the position he attained, he holds a shadowy
place in history. The death of Somharlid, a son-in-law
of King Olave of Man, is told with great distinctness.
He appeared in the Firth of Clyde with a fleet of a
hundred and sixty vessels, having projected the subju-
gation of all Scotland ; but at Renfrew the divine venge-
ance overtook him, through the hands of a small body of
men, and he was slain with a countless number of his fol-
lowers; but this occurred in the year 1164, a period later
than that of the shadowy Somerled of tradition.^ His re-
nawn has come chiefly from the houses he founded. The
Islands and Argyle, according to Highland story, were
separated and inherited by his three sons, and afterwards
subdivided among their descendants. If this be true,
then the result of the ambition and ability of this chief ojf
unknown origin was not to supersede but to break up
the empire of the Norsemen. The traditions of nearly
all the clans in the West Highlands and Isles carry back
the ancestry of their chiefs to this mysterious Somerled.

It was only natural that as the Scots kings increased
in strength they should be desirous to annex these dis-
tricts. When it was maintained that the absorption of
the Isles and Argyle was only the recovery of the oldest
possessions of the crown, it can be said that the same
excuse for aggression has been made in countless other
instances, ancient and modem, with far feebler justifica-
tion ; for these were in realitv the cradle of Scots royalty,
and the eastern districts, which were the strength of the
kingdom, were recent acquisitions. Accordingly, there
was a pressure on the power of these western chiefs.,
Argyle became nominally a Scots shire, with a Sheriff
representing the crown. Demands were made here ana
there of the chiefs to acknowledge feudal tenure on the
Scots crown, and it was in an expedition to push these
requisitions that Alexander II. died at Keirera.

Of all the old Scandinavian empire near Scotlanc^

> Chron. Man, A.D. 1102-64.

BATTLE OF LARGS, 1 263. 3 1

commanded from the sea rather than from the land, the
Orkneys and the other islands stretching northwards
were the most entire remnant — the portion least likely,
under existing conditions, to fall to the King of Scots.
The Norse community there was still wealthy and
powerful. Of the wealth of the Western Isles, then pro-
bably decaying, we have only casual vestiges ; but the old
Orkney Earldom has left a noble testimony to its afflu-
ence in the great cathedral of St Magnus. It is the
becoming rival of the two cathedrals on the mainland of
Norway, Trondheim and Stavanger. Of the earliest form
of Gothic — the Norman — it is the finest specimen in Scot-
land, and, excepting the cathedral of Glasgow, it is the
largest Gothic church in Scotland brought to completion
according to its original design.

These islands were beyond the hope of the King of
Scots in his efforts to press out the chiefs, either indepen-
dent or holding rather of Norway than himself, who ruled
so close to his dominions. It appears that he desired
to adjust all questions between Norway and Scotland by
diplomacy, and that two Scots ambassadors were sent to
the court of King Haco. The mission ended in mis-
understandings and recrimination. From the Norse side
of the disputes, it is told how the Earl of Ross, and other
potentates on the mainland of Scotland, had made a
ferocious descent on the Isle of Skye. A climax of
ferocity not uncommon among such accusations was
brought to adorn this one, that it was the delight of the
invaders to pick up here and there an infant on the point
of a spear, and shake the shaft until the victim dropped
down near to the hand, and permitted a close inspection
of its dying agonies. It was reported to the court of
Norway that these and other things were- but the symp-
toms of a project in Scotland for the seizure of the Norse
dominions in the British seas. Hence it appeared in what
follows that King Haco was preparing rather to protect
his own than to injure his neighbour.^

Norway at last determined to put to a great issue the

^ Munch, Chron. Man, i la

32 ALEXANDER III.

question of keeping as dependencies all the islands and
the western districts on the mainland over which Norse
chiefs had held rule. In the winter of 1262, King Haco
issued warrants for a conscription for this purpose overall
nis dominions. He was a despotic king, and well obeyed.
In. the summer his mighty fleet assembled at Bergen.
There his son Magnus offered to command the expedition ;
but the old king, though, as the chronicle says, he had
reigned six-and-forty winters, would not depute so critical
a command, and left his son regent of his kingdom. The
fleet sailed to the Orkney Islands, where of course it was
at home. Ere he left these friendly islands there came a
portent that might have disturbed a less resolute leader.
At Ronaldsvo there fell a great darkness, so that there w^as
only a thin bright ring instead of the round sun. It has been
calculated that there must have been an eclipse of the sun,
which at twenty-four minutes past one on the 5th of Au-
gust was annular at Ronaldsvo.^

The fleet sailed on to Caithness, which was filled vnih
Norsemen, not very tightly ruled by the Scots king, nor
much devoted to him. Here there does not- appear to
have been any one who professed to represent the crown
of Norway; but when he passed southward among the
islands, the king had to deal with persons distracted by
cruel difficulties. In the first place, they aimed at a sepa-
rate authority, independent of any superior. If they were
to have a master, they were all too conscious of the near-
ness and increasing power of the King of the Scots ; but
here was for the moment another master at their doors,
with utterly overwhelming power at his command. Some
of them had been invested with estates on the mainland.
When the King of Scots had come to terms with any of
them, he generily secured the fulfilment of the bargain by
bringing hostages to the mainland. ^ Among those now
secured was the King John who had held treaty with

^ Arch. Scot., iii. 364: the calculation was made, by Sir David
Brewster.

3 See in Arch. Scot, iii. 367, items of account for the maintenance
of these hostages.

BATTLE OF LARGS, 1263. 33

Alexander II. According to the Norse accounts, he flatly
refused to aid Haco, becayse he nad sworn allegiance to
the Scots king, of whom he held more land than of the
King of Norway. Haco sailed southward by the Lewis,
and at Skye was joined by his son-in-law Magnus, King oi
Man. In passing still southward he levied on the lords oi
Can tyre and Isla, who tendered him submission, a purvey
of a thousand cattle ; and if he received them, it is cleaf
that these districts must have been well grazed.

In the Norwegian account of the expedition we read of
many descents on the west coast by detached parties,
occasionally penetrating to some distance inland. One
of these was a feat so eccentric and original that it
must not be passed over. A detachment or squadron of
sixty ships, commanded by Magnus of Man, sailed up
Loch Long. There they found that the narrow isthmus
of Tarbet, quite flat, and only three miles across, separated
them from Loch Lomond. They dragged some galleys
over this impediment, and launched them on Loqh Lo-
mond. Along the broad eastern end of that lake stretches
the district of the Lennox, one of the most fruitful in Scot*
land. This was fresh ground for pillage, and not likely
to be guarded against marauders coming from so unlikely
a direction.

The climax of the great expedition is reached when th^
main fleet of x6o vessels, sweeping round the Mull of Can-
tyre, casts anchor between Arran and the coast of Ayrshire.
According to the Norwegian accounts, the Scots sent nego-
tiators who would have been content to retain the main-
land and the islands enclosed by it, Arran, Bute, and the
Cumbraes, leaving the outer archipelago to Norway. The
proud master of that great force, however,. would give up
nothing coming within his claims ; and then it was observed
that the Scots became shy of further treating, because
winter was coming, and that a force was gradually collect-
ing on the heights overlooking the Ayrshire coast.

That winter was propitious to Scotland. It was of the
kind that ^.t the present day would be recorded as disas-
trous to shipping on the western coast. Storm followed
storm, breaking up the mighty fleet pf Haco, by vesself

VOL. ri. c

34 ALEXANDER III.

running foul of eacli other, or getting stranded or water*
logged, or dashed against the rocky shores. One of these
disasters brought a crisis. Some galleys were stranded on
the coast near the village of Largs. Their crews, when
they got on shore, naturally met a hostile reception. The
fleet sent assistance ; but as more assistance was sent, still
more was needed, as the hostile Scots were increasing in
numbers. At last Haco resolved to do battle, and landed
a force. According to the Norse accounts, they fought
gallantly, but were overwhelmed by numbers. This is
probable ; but at the same time there does not appear to
have been what could be called an army on the Scots side.
There seems to hare been little more than the old gather-
ing of the country to resist an incursion of the Northmen,
though perhaps there was more to defend, and better
defenders, than there might have been centuries earlier.
There were, according to th-c Norse account, fifteen hun-
dred mounted and mailed men-at-arms among the Scots.
That any national preparation for defence had been made,
however, seems improbable from all that comes to us on
the Scots side. The disaster to the Nor>vegians, when
their fate compelled them to fight on shore, appears in the
Scots chronicles as the battle of Largs, fought on the 2d
of October in the year 1 263 ; and it is not wonderful that
the chroniclers, writing long afterwards, exult over it as a
great victor}'. The shattered remnant of the Norse fleet
had to work round the Mull of Cairtyre, and then along
the west coast, still tormented and suflering losses by foul
weather, until they reached the Orkneys. There old King
Haco died, on the t2th of December 1263.

In death the old Norse king was true to the spirit of his
race, though Christianity had released the victim of un-
violent death from the dismal eternity to which the old
Norse creed consigned him. When he felt the hand of
sickness on him he went to the church of St Magnus, then
newly built, and one of the wonders of the age, and walked
round the shrine of its martyred founder. Indeed, in all
things he did his best to follow the precepts of his spiritual
advisers ; but the legends of old battle-fields got the better
of the legends of the saints. He had read to him first the

BATTLE OF LAUGS, 1263. 35

Bible, then the Lives of the Saints ; but at last he demanded
to have read to him day and night, while he was awake,
the chronicles of the Norwegian kings, from Haldan the
Black downwards.

Throughout the information we possess of Haco's expe-
dition, it is clear that little preparation was made by the
Government to meet it. There is no notice of any muster
of the crown vassals. We hear of no naval encounters,
although Scotland possessed ships. It is probable that
these were insufficient to operate to any good effect against
the mighty sea force of Haco, and that the best to be done
with them was to keep them out of danger.

Largs was indeed not a spot where a deliberate invasion
of the country could well be expected, since it is extremely
ill suited for troops forming in strength after landing.
Elsewhere to the right and the left there might perhaps
have been found navigable sea coming up at high tides to
level ground ; but here there is a narrow strip, with blufts
running right up from it. Troops marching along the
strip in either direction would be flanked from the higher
ground for many miles ; and the alternative of passing
through any of the narrow clefts which pierce the range of
hills would have been still more perilous.

We hear in the earlier accounts of no commander to
the Scots force, nor is it recorded that any of the great
feudatories of the crown were present This silence is
made emphatic by the eminence given to the rank and
splendid equipments of Sir Pierce Curry, the only man
whose name can be absolutely identified on the Scots
side at the battle of Largs. The force seems, indeed,
to have been a miscellaneous gathering of the peasantry,
and as such it affords a forecast of that armed power which
the country afterwards showed itself so capable of ani*
mating into life in time of need.^

' In the absence of any other detailed account of this expedition,
it b necessary either to pass it rapidly by as an unexplained incident,
or to found on a little book called **The Norwegian Account of
Haco's Expedition against Scotland, a.d. 1263, now first published
in the original Islantic from the Flateyan and Frisian MSS., with a
literal English version and notes by the Rev. James Johnston. A.M."
J 782.

36 ALEXANDER III.

It was natutal that an event such as the battle of Laiigs
should in the popular chronicles of later times find a place
with the ravages of the Norse invaders of four hundred
years earlier. The fulness of the narrative, due to the
later date of the events, only served to give emphasis and
distinctness to a class of historical events too vague in
the announcements of the older inroads. Here indeed
was the last of the outrages from the Viking freebooters.
As it was the last, so it was the greatest, and it met a fate
that for ever kept the coast of Scotland safe from the
inroads of the sea-robber. Many monuments on the
west coast belonging to the class called Druidical seemed
to commemorate the event, and suit well in their character
as memorials of the burial of *' the heathen Danes " who
fell in their last outrage. Among these a cromlech on
a rising-ground near Largs appropriately served as the
monument erected over the body of King Haco, as killed
in the battle.

When the elements had freed the country from its
peril, the king sent a great force against the island poten*
tates, now at his mercy. The Scots chronicles, as a
supplement to the victory, tell us that severe vengeance
fell on the island chiefs who had in any way countenanced
the invader. Severity and cruelty were too much the or-
der of such occasions. These chroniclers, however, writ*
ing long afterwards, required such results to supply the
moral to their view of the conduct of men who are de-
nounced by them as perfidious traitors to their king and
country. To add another picturesque touch to this view,
it is told how old Haco, when death approached him,
believing it incumbent on him to leave behind the means
of visitation on such wickedness, sent to King Alexander
the letters inviting his descent, which he had received
from those treasonable subjects.^

This disaster was a blow keenly felt in Norway as a
diminution of power. Three years afterwards, in 1266^
Magnus IV., the new king, by formal treaty, ceded to the
King of Scots Man and all the Western Isles, specially

* See the Scoticbronicon and Wyntoun.

BAGIMOND'S ROLL, 1275-76. 37

reserving Orkney and Shetland to the crown of Norway.
On the other hand, the King of Scots, in consideration of
the powers or claims ceded by the crown of Norway,
agreed to pay down a ransom of a thousand marks, and
an annual rent of a hundred marks. There was no stipu-
lation for homage or any feudal ceremony on the occa-
sion.^ In the year 1281 a bond of amity was established
between the crowns by the marriage of . the Scots
Princess Margaret to Eric of Norway.

There were some secondary troubles in this reign
connected with the adjustment of the independent rights
of the Scots Church. In the rescript already spoken of,
in which Pope Innocent IV. refused to comply with
the demand made on the part of England about the
crowning of the King of Scots, he also declined to
authorise King Henry to draw the tax on benefices in
Scotland, with the remark that such a claim by one prince
on the dominions of another was unknown. In 1254
Innocent IV. granted to Henry a twentieth of the bene-
fices in Scotland on condition of his joining the crusade.
The arrangements for the disposal of the money to be
thus raised were so shifted and adjusted from time to
time, as to show that the Court of Rome held this to be
a fund entirely at its own disposal. The money, how-
ever, though it seems to have been partly collected, was
not permitted to cross the border. The king and the
clergy were at one on this point, and had a practical
excuse for the retention by fitting out a small expedition
of Scots knights, who joined the crusade, from which
none of them returned.^

A taxation of Church livings involved a rating of their
value : and it is found that such a rating had been made,
in part at least, as early as the reign of William the Lion.
When the taxation of lands comes up for consideration,
there arises a natural dispute if the value of the lands has

^ Robertson's Index to the Charters, loi.

• One of these, the Earl of Carrick, left a widow, who, by her
romantic marriage with the son of Bruce, the competitor for thf
crown, became the mother of the great King Robert

38 ALEXANDER II F.

risen since the latest preceding valuation was applied.
}f there be an old recorded estimate of value, it is the
interest of the payer of the tax to hold by that estimate,
of the receiver to have a new survey. Jn 1275 there
came to Scotland, commissioned from Rome, Boiamund
de Vicci, commonly called Bagimond. His errand was
to collect the tenths of benefices, and to have them rated
according to their existing value. The Church stood
tenaciously by the old practice, and prevailed on the
Papal agent to return and represent their case at Rome.
Whether his representations were earnest or not, they
were not successful. He returned and completed his valu-
ation. It was a permanent record, known as Bagimond's
Roll, anil was the foundation of ecclesiastical taxation
down to the Reformation. It has been remarked that,
whether from imperfect collection or some other cause,
the Court of Rome profited litde by the new valuation, and
that it made but a trifling addition to the amount that
would have been collected under the old practice. The
subsequent history of Bagimond's Roll is as instructive as
Its precedents on the distaste of a progressive country for
new valuations. After a time, the demand ever was to
tax upon the valuation in Bagimond's Roll — not the exist-
ing value ; and thus, centuries after the time when it had
been resisted, both as a heavy tax and a badge of sub-
jection to Rome, it was cherished as a vested privilege of
the Church in Scotland.^

There were other ecclesiastical difficulties, but they
were not of magnitude, and ended well for the indepen-

* A valuable inquiry into the question how far we have existing evi-
dence for the contents of this roll, along with an inquiry into the amount
first realised under it, will be found in the preface to the Statnta
Ecclesioe Scoticanae, p. Ixv. et seq, ** The whole amount received in
the three years beginning with the Feast of the Nativity of St John
the Baptist, 1274, was ;t7i9S sterling, or, on an average, ^2035 a-year.
This would not represent a yearly value of more than j620,350,
being an increase of only ;f 1688 on the yearly value, shown by the
Antiqua Taxatio." See also Origines Parochiales, pref. xxxiv.

"Boiamund died before the collection of the tax was completed.
The gathering in of the arrears was intrusted to certain merchants of
Florence, Sienna, and Lucca.** — Ibid.

ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS, 1225-80. 39

dence of the Scots Church. The Papal legate, Othobon
Fiesci^ proposed in 1267 to pass from England into
Scotland, and there hold an ecclesiastical council He
was not admitted into Scotland, apj)arently because he
had been accredited as legate only to England. He then
demanded that the Scots bishops, along with represen-
tatives of the lesser clergy, should meet him in a council
to be held in England. Two bishops and two heads of
religious houses were sent on the occasion; but it was
not, as we are told, for the purpose of liolding a council,
but of protesting against any acts prejudicial to the
Church of Scotland which might be done by any council
assembled in England. Meanwhile the Church had been
consolidating itself as a special institution, belonging to
Scotland as a separate state. Several national counx:ils
— provincial councils, as they were called in the nomen-
clature of the Court of Rome — ^assembled. It was re-
presented to the Papal Court that such provincial councils
were necessary for the due observance of the laws and
injunctions of councils-general, especially in so remote a
district as Scotland. It had become a rule of the Church
that metropolitans presiding over ecclesiastical provinces
were annually to hold provincial councils for the enforce-
ment of the laws of the Church, the reformation of
manners, and the other functions proper to such bodies.
Scotland had as yet no metropolitan. It is likely enough
that there was hesitation as between either of two strong
measures — conceding the English supremacy, or making
one of the Scots bishops supreme by the established
form of sending a pallium to him. At all events, the
course taken was of a middle kind. In the year 1225
a bull was issued, authorising the Scots Church to as-
semble in council without special Papal authority, or the
presence of a legate. At the assemblies so held, a code
of laws or ecclesiastical canons was adopted. It contains:
fifty-nine statutes or short chapters, of which it may be
said that they do not so far depart from the ordinary in-
stitutions and practice of other Churches as to afford those
marked peculiarities which give a distinctive character,
and a sort of picturesqueness, to the ways of the Church

40 ALEXANDER III.

of Scotland in earlier ages. They are, in great measure,
adaptations from the English ecclesiastical laws. So
much about the date of this code is known that in its
complete frrm it cannot be so old as the year 1237, yet
roust have been in existence before the year 1286.^

Few states could, in that age, look forward to a more
serene and prosperous future than Scotland after the battle
of Largs. A son was bom to the king — the chroniclers
have it that he was told this on the day when he got news
of Haco's death. Ere he was yet forty-four years old, with
two children and a grandchild, he gave a tolerable pro«
mise of undisputed succession. A dangerous enemy was
humbled and thrown to a distance, and the English claims
seemed a vision of the past. The fate of nations, as we
have seen, had come to depend, more than of old, on
genealogical conditions, which dictated the succession to
royal houses, insomuch that the events which plunge a
family in grief might also be a real calamity to a people.
A succession of such calamities followed close on each
other. In preparation for them we may count the death
of Henry III. in 1272 as a calamity, in that it bequeathed
the opportunities offered by the others to a spirit so cap-
able, vigilant, and remorseless as that of Edward I. King
Alexander, who was of like age with his brother-in-law,
got over successfully any difficulties about homage at the
coronation, exempting his right as a free sovereign from
his obligations, and all went smoothly for ten years ; — ^so
at least it appeared upon the face of history. Nothing
comes up in the course of public known events to disturb
or alarm Scotland about the designs of the English king ;
but there is a small entry in the English records in the
Tower which afterwards did disturb the champions of
national independence, and create hot discussion in the
great literary war about the homage question. There is a
transcript of a Close Roll of the sixth of Edward I. (1278),

^ Preface to Statuta Generalia, liv. lliis code, which first ai>-
peared in the Concilia of Wilkms, to whom it was supplied by Ruddi-
man, was reprinted by Lord Hailes in the third volume of his AnnaH
The authoritative version wiU now be that of Robertson's Statuta.

THE HOMAGE QUESTION, 1278. 4!

recording that the King of Scots came to Westminster to
proffer his homage. We are thus prepared for the method
of the homage, limited or unlimited, and are told that it
was complete and comprehensive.* It could only be said
that this was the English version of the affair, which could
not be justly pleaded to the prejudice of Scotland. A
zealous Scot, however, determined to see with his own
eyes if it were so written in the bond, found that the pas-
sage had been inserted on an erasure. It was thus evi-
dent that the roll originally contained something which it
was desirable to replace with something else.*

It happens that a scribe of one of the oldest of the
Scots monasteries, as if to guard against any such treach-
ery, kept a note of the precise form of the ceremony of
homage and of its conditions. These, according to his
sense of them, were very emphatic : —

** In the year of God 1278, on the day of the Apostles
St Simeon and St Jude, at Westminster, Alexander, King
of Scots, did homage to Edward, King of England, in
these words : * I become your man for the lands which I
hold of you in the kingdom of England, for which I owe
you homage, saving my kingdom.' Then said the Bishop
of Norwich, * And saving to the King of England, if he
right have, to your homage for your kingdom ;' to whom
the king immediately answered, sajing aloud, * To homage
for my kingdom of Scotland no one has any right but God
alone, nor do I hold it of any, but of God.* " *

While such weapons of contest were preparing in the
recesses of cloisters and record-houses, troubles more
palpable and public were at hand.

In 1283 came the news that the king's daughter, Mar-

' " Et illud ci fecit in haec verba : * Ego, Alexander, Rex Scot-
orum, devenio ligius homo domini Edwardi, Regis Angiorum, contra
omnes gentes.' Et idem Rex Anglise homagium ejusdem Regis
Scotise recepit."

* Allen's Vindication, 87.

' " Cui rex statim respondit aperte dicens, * Ad homagium regni
mei Scociae nullus jus habet nisi solus Dominus ; nee illud teneo nisf
de solo Domino."' — ** De homagio quod fecit Alexander Terdus, Rex
Scocise, Edwardo, Regni Anglise, pro terris suis quas habuit in regno
Angliac ;" Register of Dunfermline, 217.

42 ALEXANDER III.

garety Queen of Nonvay, had died, leaving a newly-born
daughter. Within a few months the king's son, Alexander,
married to Margaret, daughter of the Earl of Flanders,
died also.

Here at once the country was in a sea of difficulties.
We have seen that in England, rather more than a cen-
tury earlier, the law of succession had not become so exact
as to fix whether an heiress should succeed to the crown
or should be absolutely excluded. Such a question was a
like novel criterion of the rule of succession in Scotland.
Had there been so near a relation as an uncle — a brother
of the late king — to rest upon, there is little doubt that he
would have succeeded Alexander. It was known that
there were several expectants of the succession, but they
were all distant collaterals. What w^as far more serious,
however, they were all Norman barons, with possessions
in England as well as Scotland. There was no doubt,
although Norman names are then so conspicuous in great
state transactions in Scotland, that there was a strong
middle class, backed by a peasant and burgher class, who
disliked the Norman intruders, and felt a horror of any
subjection to a Norman government such as England had
now been suffering under for two hundred years. To them
it appeared that Scotsmen were drifting towards such a fate,
with nothing at present existing but the frail child away in
Norway to protect them. Whether it should be the Eng-
lish king himself, or one of those Norman magnates sur-
rounding his throne, that was to rule, would make little
matter ; it would still be Norman rule.

Impelled by such a prospect, there was a determination
at once to render the succession of the child as secure as
it could be made. The Estates met at Scone so quickly
after the news of the prince's death, that their resolution
was made contingent on a posthumous child being bom
by his w^idow. Saving such an event as the king having
children, it was resolved that the crown should go to the
Princess of Nonvay.

Soon afterwards, in 1285, the king married Joleta, the
daughter of the Count of Dreux. It happened that within
a few months afterwards, the 12th of March 1286, he

NATIONAL CRISIS, 1286-90. 4 J

chose to ride in the dark along the coast of Fife opposite
to Edinburgh. Near the present bui^h of Kinghom he
had to pass over a rugged promontory of basaltic trap.
He was pitched from his horse over one of these rocks
and killed Such was the final calamity, opening one of
the most gloomy chapters in the history of nations.

Within a month the Estates had met at Scone and ap-
pointed a regency to govern the kingdom in the absence
of its queen. The formation of this body kept up the
peculiarity that the country was divided into two com-
munities by the Forth. Three guardians were appointed
for the southern district, the old Roman province, and
three for the northern, the Scotland that a century earlier
had been bounded by the Forth as the Scots water. Each
set consisted of a bishop and two barons. Of the north-
ern guardians the Earl of Fife was murdered and the Earl
of Buchan died, so that as ruler of that district there re-
mained the bishop only, Fraser of St Andrews.

There was now much stir among the collaterals. The
nearest male relation of Alexander was Robert Bruce, the
grandson of Earl David. It has been seen that, more
than forty years before, Alexander II. had arranged that
if he died childless Bruce should succeed to the crown.
He was then the only male representative of William the
Lion's brother, Earl David ; but there were now other male
descendants, and even in the imperfectly-formed genealo-
gical notions of the day that altered materially the power
of his claims. Still he was in a position to indulge in high
hopes, and showed a disposition to realise them if he
could. He assembled his retainers and took an attitude
of such decided menace that in the subsequent competi-
tion for the crown he was charged with rebellion against
his queen by marching against her fortresses with banner
displayed, and especially bv assailing and seizing her
castle of Dumfries.^

^ In BalioPs pleading of his cause before King Edward, of which
hereafter, it is set forth that Bruce and his son, the Earl of Carrick,
attacked the castle of Dumfries with banner displayed, and drove out
the garrison. The record is imperfect, but it charges him with taking

44 ALEXANDER III.

He indulged in the hope that King Edward would even
now, and while the young queen lived, help him to the
throne. There is extant a document in which he threatens
the guardians that in case they should choose John Baliol
to be king, as he hears they intend, he shall put himself
into the hands of the King of England. His threat is
backed by seven earls, and supported, according to his
assertion, by a body of the community. This curious
document is silent on two points. It says nothing about
the existence of the child who was held to be the Queen
of Scotland, and it says nothing about a right of superiority
over Scotland in the monarch to whom he threatens to
appeal for the enforcement of his rights. He was King
Edward's subject; and, denied his rights elsewhere, he
would throw himself on his lord and master for aid and
protection. But there is something in the tone of the
threat to show that, if he must take assistance from such
a quarter, he was likely to hold Scotland of the master
who would give it to him.^ Bruce was, however, suddenly

liberties with another royal castle. Its name cannot be read, but Sir
Francis Palgrave thus renders the incident : ** He then caused a pro-
clamation to be made by one Patrick M 'Guffok within the bailey of
the same castle. The tenor or subject of this proclamation cannot
be precisely collated." — Documents illustrating the Hist, of Scot., 42 ;
Introd;, Ixxx.

^ All that we know about this threat is scattered through the pro-
vokingly fragmentary morsels from some parchments in the English
Treasury, which have been preserved and printed by Sir Francis Pal-
grave in his volume of Documents and Records illustrating the His-
tory of Scotland. Probably the accuracy of the transcripts given by
Sir Francis will never be tested by comparison with the original frag-
ments, nor need it. The devotion of this zealous antiquary for the
purity of texts was so ardent, and his skill in deciphering was so great,
that any one going over the originals, and taking a different reading
of any passage, would at once admit himself in error and accept of
the reading printed by Sir Francis, both in the parts where he is able
sometimes to give a sentence nearly or actually complete, and in those
where he can only make out a few fragments of words. There is not,'
however, the same implicit reliance when Sir Francis draws large
conclusions from his painfully-deciphered fragments. Because Robert
de Bruce threatened, or appears to have threatened, the guardians
with the interference of his lord King Edward, one is not disposed to
consider this as evidence of a- complete understanding among all con-
cerned that King Edward was Loi^ Superior of Scotland. Ine temu^

NATIONAL CRISIS, 1286-90. 45,

Silenced — so suddenly that the chronicles give but a faint
echo of his having stirred at all. We must suppose, there-
fore, that he got some significant hint from that master
of whom he held such solid estates as might well outvalue
a shadowy crown.

used, so far as the fragments retain them, are quite diiferent from
those which Robert Bruce used afterwards when he pleaded his claim
before Edward, and called him Lord Superior of Scotland at every
turn. The strongest terms he uses in his threat announce his deter-
mination to stand '*protectione et defensione predicti domini Regis
Anglise et corona sua regia ;" but in his subsequent pleading for the
crown the phraseology is ** coram praefato domino nostro Reee, tan-
quam coram superiore seu directo Domino Regni Scotiae. The
pleadings, of which some account will come in the right place, are
rife with such expressions, but it would not hare been safe to employ
them in Scotland even when Sir Robert was threatening the guardians.
In fact, so far as a tone can be taken from the incoherent morsels of
his threat, he seems to have come forth in a form familiar enough in
smaller affairs — that of the dependant of a man of power bullying
persons humble but independent, and threatening to brii^ his master
doAA-n upon them. Mr Carlyle would find here a thorough specimen
of that psychological phenomenon which in his technical nomencla*
ture is known by the term ** flunkeyism." People are not accustomed
to associate such characteristics with the name of Bruce ; and as we
shall meet this member of the family again, it may be as well to keep
distinctly in the mind that it was not he, but his grandson, who was
the hero of Bannockbum.

The fra^ents found by Sir Francis in the Treasury were not only
satisfactonly conclusive to him in the matter of the supremacy of
England, but convinced him that there existed in Scotland a remark-
able constitutional body — a board, as we would call it at the present
day — consisting of Seven Earls, who, among their other functions,
had the settling of Uie succession to the crown in all cases of dif-
ficulty.

In fact, the editor's comments on the valuable documents which he
had the merit of finding and preserving, exemplify a frailty to which
the skilful archaeologists who deal much in manuscript authorities are
liable. They are apt to give undue importance to the weight of any new
matter they have oeen so fortunate as to discover, and so to contort
the features of history. The greater and the more valuable part of
the materials of history has been no doubt brought into existence
by those who have gone to such sources, yet at any one point the
matter specially known to some skilful decipherer is but small in
comparison with what is in print, and known to all who care to seek
lor it

Thoujgh it is vain work to look for something like a board of control
or an e&ctoral college so constituted, yet a reference to seven earls is

46 ALEXANDER III.

Looking back upon this crisis through the light of event9
happening a few years afterwards, we find a very notice-
able blank, though the Estates and others concerned in
Scotland were probably unconscious of it. Here again
the succession to the crown of Scotland opened to a minor ;
and if the King of England had been, as soon afterwards
he said he was, the Lord Paramount of Scotland as a fief
of the English crown, it was not only his right, but his
feudal duty, to take on himself the management of the
affairs of the fief. Further, it evidently should have been
a serious matter for his consideration whether it was to be
admitted that Scotland was so exceptional among sove-
reign fiefs as to be descendible to an heir-female. The
lord superior had great interests at stake, and everything to
say in such a matter. A superior with an heiress-vassal to

common in old records, and provocative of curiosity. In a document
in the chartulary of Dunfermline, a certain act of feudal investiture is
referred to, and its date is identified by the day on which St Margaret's
remains were removed to the high altar of Dunfermline (see voL i.
p. 381). To mark the event of removal, it is said to have been made
in the presence of King Alexander III., seven bishops, and seven
earls of Scotland — '*septemepiscoporum et septem comitum Scotise"
(Register of Dunfermline, 235). In one of the chronicles, an attack
on Carlisle by the Scots in 1296, to be afterwards mentioned, is said
to have been made under the leadership of seven earls whose earl-
doms are given — Buchan, Monteith, Stratheam, Lennox, Athole,
Mar, and Badenoch. '* Quo tempore septem comites Scotiae, vide*'
licet de Bowan, de Moneteth, de Stradehenie, de Lewenes, de Ros,
de Athel, de Mar, ac Johannes filius Johannis Comyn de Badenan,
collecto excrcitu.'* — St Alban's Chronicles, Kishanger, 156. Sevea
earls of Scotland were said to have been slain at the battle of Neville's
Cross. Mr £. W. Robertson, in his Scotland under the Early Kings,
has commented in his usual impartial spirit on Talgrave's discovery,
and notices the old reference in the tract De Situ Alixinix to the tra-
dition about the seven provinces of Pictland (ii. 504). The mystery
will probably be solved some day, and found to l)e very simple.
Other parts of the world have been vexed by this *' mystic number
seven,' as it is termed. The Saxon kingdoms were still called a
Heptarchy when it is certain that seven was not their number. But
everything in Britain must yield to the scale on which the mystic
figure worked in Ireland. We are told how ** the fact that Aengus
was able to enumerate 141 places in Ireland where there were or had
been seven contemporary bishops, seems to indicate the existence of
an institution founded upon the mystical seven of the Apocalvpse."—
Todd't St Patrick, 35.

NATIONAL CRISIS, 1286-90. 47

dispose of, had gained a prize in the feudal lottery which
no ordinary man would neglect. A monarch who after-
wards, as we shall see, was so punctilious in giving due
weight to all rules of law and personal rights, might have
been expected to look to all these things. It was not his
l>olicy, however, at that point of time, to proclaim himself
the Lord Superior of Scotland, and none of the diplomatic
documents to which he was a party give a hint of such a
claim, though afterwards his scribes were careful to make
frequent repetition of his title of Lord Superior in all docu-
ments which concerned Scotland. His designs were of a
kind which required accomplices to complete them, and
he waited until events gave him accomplices.

His first poHcy, however, rested on conditions fundamen-
tally different from those with which he ultimately had to
deal He had then a secret intention divulged no further
than was absolutely necessary' for accomplishing the first
steps towards it. He had, in fact, obtained a dispensation
from the Pope to enable his son Edward to marry the
infant Queen of Scots — they were cousins-german, and so
within the prohibited degrees by the canon law.

So stood matters when King Eric sent to England
certain commissioners or ambassadors. What urged him
immediately to this step, or what he expected to gain by
it, it is not easy to see, but it became the function of these
representatives to look after the interests of the young
queen. Edward asked the Scots regency to send com-
missioners to meet them. Four were appointed — the
Bishops of St Andrews and Glasgow, with Bmce and
Comyn. They had powers to treat, which excluded all
acts prejudicial to the nationality and public interest
of Scotland. Commissioners were appointed by King
Edward, and the three commissions met at Salisbury. It
was a vague conference. If the great secret of the designed
marriage with the Prince of England was known to those
present, no discussion on it appeared in their proceedings.
It was promised for Norway either to send the young queen
to Scotland, or to send her to England free of matrimonial
engagements. For England something was said about the
necessity for establishing, good order in Scotland, and that

43 ALEXANDER III.

being accomplished, the young queen, if in English hands»
should be transferred free to Scotland ; but there was a
condition of some significance, that security should be
given that she would not be bestowed in marriage except
by Edward's advice, and with the consent of King Eric,
her father. The Scots promised the establishment of good
order, and oflfered to remove any of the guardians who
might be obnoxious to King Eric

It seems to have been immediately after this meeting
that the Scots heard of Edward's intention about the
marriage, and it was discussed at a meeting of the Estates.
Edward was besought by them to tell if this were true, in
a shape which showed that they caught eagerly at the
proposal ; and with like eagerness they urged King Eric
to send over their young queen. Edward must have
admitted his project, for we find him assuring the Scots
that he could use influence to make Eric send over the
child, and he was urged to use that influence, since it
appeared that her father was reluctant to part with her.
It is clear that, whether wisely or not, the Estates thought
that the chances for Scotland were better in a marriage of
their queen with the King of England that might be, than
in leaving the throne to encounter the dangers then in
prospect

Meanwhile they did their best for the protection of the
country by a solemn treaty. It was accepted by the clergy,
nobility, and whole community of Scotland, assembled at
Brigham, near Berwick, on the i8th of July 1290. It
provided that the rights, laws, and liberties of Scotland
should continue entire and unviolated; the kingdom of
Scotland was to remain separate from England, divided by
its proper marches ; no crown vassal should be bound to
go beyond the boundaries of Scotland to do homage to a
sovereign residing within England, but when necessary a
commissioner should be appointed to receive the homage
within Scotland ; no native of Scotland was to answer
beyond the marches in a civil cause, or for a crime com-
mitted by him in Scotland ; no parliament was to be held
outside the boundaries of Scotland to discuss matters re>
ipecting the kingdom ; and lastly, among matters dealing

NATIONAL CRISIS, 1286-90. 49

more with mere detail, one touched an important point.
Care was taken that there should be an entirely national
Great Seal, always to be held by a native of Scotland.
There were stipulations of a general tenor, reserving all
rights existing in the King of England or others as to the
marches or elsewhere, and some have thought that these
conditions virtually neutralised the whole. They would
have gone for nothing, however, in any interpretation of
the treaty, and its specific conditions were as strong a
protection to the nationality of Scotland as parchment
could create. King Edward himself afterwards certified
in the strongest way its efficiency as a treaty, by requiring
that Baliol, on obtaining the crown of Scotland at his
hands, should cancel the treaty of Brigham.

King Edward's first act after the acceptance of the treaty
must have startled the Estates. He sent Anthony Beck,
the warlike Bishop of Durham, to act, in concert with the
guardians of Scotland, and with the advice of the Estates,
as lieutenant for Queen Margaret and her husband, — and
this in order that he might be able to keep the oath he had
taken to maintain the laws of Scotland. He next demand-
ed the possession of royal strongholds in Scodand, on
account of some suspicious rumours that had reached him.
It is open to any one to maintain, and but for Edward's
subsequent career it might have been plausibly maintained,
that he was here influenced by a determination to protect
the kingdom against the pretenders to the throne.

There was at that time written to King Edward a letter
by the Bishop of St Andrews, which became memorable,
and has to be referred to further on. The letter expressed
gratitude for a message brought from King Edward, whence
it is to be inferred that the king took graciously the refusal
to give up the castles. The satisfaction from this petty
success was, however, clouded by the rumour of an eveut
likely to overwhelm this practical difficulty, and all othei'S
of its kind, in far more momentous issues. The rumour
was confirmed, and it became known that the young queen
— the Maid of Norway, as she was called — had died at
Orkney, on her way to Scotland.

VOL. IL X>

50

CHAPTER XVI.

PROGRESS OF THE NATION TO THE WAR OF

INDEPENDENCE.

TOPOGRAPHY — BOUNDARIES OF THE COUNTRY — THE PROVINCES'^
CAPITAL TOWNS — MINOR TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS — SHERIFFS— >
THANES — MAARMOKS — PROGRESS OP FEUDALISM — OLDER LAWS
FOUND IN OPERATION WHEN FEUDALISM BEGAN— THE FICTITIOUS
CODES OF OLD LAWS— THE REGIAM MAJ EST ATEM— CRITICAL LITER-
ATURE ABOUT IT AND OTHER EARLY LAWS— ACTUAL VESTIGES OV
THE OLD LAWS — LOCAL CODES, LOTHIAN. GALLOWAY, ETC. —
PECUNIARY MULCTS FOR OFFENCES— MONEY VALUE OF THE CITIZEN
—COMPARISON WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE
—INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT OF NEIGHBOURLINESS AND COMMON
RESPONSIBILITY— SPIRIT OF FAIRNESS AND HUMANI FY— SPECIMENS
OF ANCIENT LAWS— ORDEALS— BATTLE— RISE AND INFLUENCE OP
MUNICIPALITIES— PROTECTION TO LIBERTY— NO MAGNA CHARTA, OK
CHARTERS OF THE FOREST— SUCH PROTECTIVE CONCESSIONS NOT
REQUIRED.

We have now reached a critical period — it might be
called the critical period — of our history. For some time
to come every year has its own trouble in danger and
contest; and when these years of trouble are over, the
community emerging from them is different in many
essential elements from the community upon whom they
opened. The opportunity, therefore, seems suitable
for casting a glance at the condition, so far as we can
make it out, in which this period of difficulty found the
country.

The history of the contests in the outlying districts has
shown the difficulties which the authority of the King of
Scots had in extending to certain territories in the north
and the west, which, in the end, came under his rule. We

TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS, 1000-1290. 5 1

have seen how the term Scots was first applicable only to
natives of Ireland ; how it crossed the Channel, and in*
eluded the descendants of those Irish who had settled in
Argyle; and how, at last, the monarch ruling from the
Tweed and the Solway northward was named the ** King
of the Scots.'* Still that was a colloquial expression, such
as we use when we design the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland by the word Britain, or England. The
King of the Scots, when he issued his charters as a notifi-
cation to all classes among whom he held rule, called
them PYancs and Angles, Scots and Galwcgians. The
Francs were the Norman settlers, and had become so
numerous as to be a great element in the population.
The Angles were the refugee families who had fled from
Norman tyranny in England, and perhaps the whole
population of the Lothians was so called. The term
Scotia or Scotland at this time meant the country north of
the Forth. This river, with its Firth, was called "the
Scots Water," and Lothian and Galloway were as yet
countries only united with Scotland under the same
crown. Thus, among the earliest of the public laws —
those attributed to William the Lion— there is a regulation
by which an inhabitant of Scotland, making a seizure or
distraint beyond — that is, south of— the Forth, must bring
it under the notice of the sheriff of Stirling — spoken of
sometimes as a town on the border of Scotland — and
convey it to Haddington, where it may be redeemed.^

By the same old law, certain places are appointed in
Scotia to which all legal writs should be returned, and
these may be counted, so far as a declaration or regula-
tion could make them, the local Capitals of their respec-
tive districts. They were — for Gowrie, at Scone ; for the
Stormonth, at Cluny ; and for Stratheam, at Kyntinloch,
now identified with the village of Kintillo on the river Earn,
three miles from its junction with the Tay.^ All these

1 '* Nemo de Scocia debet accipere namum ultra aqiiam de Forth
nisi prius ostenditur vicecomiti de Strivelin." — Assisae Regis WiUelmi,
xxvil

' Kyntinloch was supposed to have stood where Perth now is. The

52 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

districts were in Perthshire, and showed that there the
centre of Scotland proper stood. For the district of
Athole, the central station was at Rait, now Logierait, in
Perthshire ; for Fife, at Dalgynch, supposed to be Mark-
inch ; for Angus, at Forfar; for the Meams, at Dunnottar;
for Mar and Buchan, at Aberdeen; and for Ross and
Moray, at Inverness.^

We find no decided tendency in any town or fortress to
Aggregate to itself the conditions of a national capital.
The King of the Picts was said to have had his capital
successively at Inverness, at Fort-Teviot, a few miles south
of Perth, and at Abemethy, on the south bank of the
Tay. The King of the Scots, while he ruled only in the
west, is said to have held court at Innerluchty, or, as it is
now called, Fort-William ; while the King of Strathclyde
had his at Alcuin or Dumbarton. But these are capitals
only in the magniloquent language of the chroniclers,
which will accept of nothing less than an empire with all
its parts complete, though dealing with a community
which is but faintly articulated out of the general chaos.
That the iiilers of the districts occasionally frequented
such places, is all that can be authenticated towards
making them capitals.

As the state broadens and consolidates, these annalists
are less apt to find a capital for it, because more is known
of its actual internal organisation. Scone at Perth, where

identity of the place with Kintillo was suggested to me by more than
one friendly correspondent. This village is interesting and peculiar,
OS still bearing marks of old importance. Instead of the usual Scots
midland village, with its sordid cottages, slated or thatched, it is a
short street of houses, considerable in size, generally with railed-of!
gardens or shrubberies. It is very like the old suburbs of villas that
grew a few years after the union of the crown, when the fear of inva-
sion from England no longer kept the afHuent citizens within the
walls. It is so often seen as to become almost a law, that when no
serious disturbing element breaks in, the several buildings of a cluster
are renewed from time to time on the old ground-plan. Hence it is
likely that the present houses of Kintillo, though probably none of
them is above two centuries old, carry down to ns the aspect of «
place of ancient importance.
^ Assise; Regis \Villelnii, tit.

TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS, 1000-1290. 53

the Stone of Destiny was kept and there was a favourite
royal residence, bade fair to become the centre of govern-
ment ; but in wealth and importance it was exceeded by
Berwick. Dunfermline was a favourite royal residence;
and we find the king issuing his writs from Edinburgh
and Roxburgh, and successively from various other places
in which he sojourned for the time.

We shall have to deal farther on with the burghal com-
munities, and the influence of their trade and special
privileges in creating towns. We have seen something of
the local divisions into dioceses and parishes, created by
the progress of ecclesiastical organisation. There was
another great local division, for purely civil purposes, into
Counties, Shires, or Sherifi^oms. In England, the distinct
partition between the several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms drew
several strong lines of demarcation, which served as
boundaries to counties. In Scotland, the counties, as they
exist, became gradually marked off or articulated, through
that aggregating force in the growth of feudal crowns
already alluded to, which took shape in converting inde-
pendent local potentates into representatives of the crown,
or in setting down such representatives to exercise a joint
authority with them. This was m*et by a counter-force
equally feudal in its nature, by which the office of repre-
sentative of the crown had a perpetual tendency to become
hereditary, and so all but independent of central authority.
The contest of these two forces makes great confusion in
the early growth of sheriffdoms, which becomes mixed
up with that of the feudal nobility. We have Thanes,
Earls, and Counts — all terms in some measure synonymous
with Sheriff, and all on occasion nominated by the crown ;
yet afterwards comes, as a new missionary to give effect
to the royal authority, this same Sheriff or Shire-graff.

There came, however, to be this much of distinction
between the sheriff and the other local dignitaries, that
the sheriff, whether hereditary or not, was nominally the
servant of the sovereign, and that all his official acts as
sheriff were, or ought to be, for the benefit of the crown
and the furtherance of government business. Further,
while the territories over which the other local dignitaries

54 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

exercised autliority depended on the extent of their own
feudal rights of property or superiority, the sheriffs autho-
rity came to be determmed by a fixed arbitrary limit — the
boundaries of the Shire or County.

But even to this, as a general rule, there were excep-
tions; for special rights of sheriffdom over detached
pieces of territory were conferred on families of powerful
local influence. Others held Baronies, which conferred
the right of holding courts of justice, with certain limited
powers ; or Regalities, which conveyed a like right with
much higher powers. Taking in at a general glance the
writs in which such judicial powers are dispersed among
the leading families all over the country, a natural first
impression is that the crown had profusely alienated to
subjects the power and responsibility of administering
justice. But m reality the process was ruled by another
of the specialities of the growth of the feudal monarchy
already referred to. The sovereign could not well help
doing as he did, and the act conveying the power virtually
restrained it within certain limits. The central power of
the government was not yet strong enough to supersede
that of the local magnates, and the crown conceding cer-
tain powers, which these consented to receive in full of all
demands, was a virtual compromise.

It is scarcely more than putting in another form this
estimate of the limited power of the crown to say, that
there was not sufficient central machinery to transact the
judicial business of the nation. The Chancellor does not
appear to have yet become a judge. We hear of the
Justiciars or Chief Justices — one, at least, for the territory
north of the Forth, another for Lothian. The king sitting
in the sort of supreme council, which we shall presently
have to look at, did justice, but in great questions only.
Among the fragments of King David's ordinances, one
prohibits any of the lieges from bringing his plea before
the king himself, unless he has first brought it before his
lord, or the sheriff, or bailies having jurisdiction in the
place ; unless it be one of the great pleas of the crown.*

^ Aisisse Regis Davidis, c. 24 ; A. P. I la

LOCAL AUTHORITIES, IOOO-1290. 55

Hence out of necessary conditions arose what appeared
to be a profuse and reckless distribution of local powers.
Their utmost stretch was expressed when it was said that
a hereditary jurisdiction extended to " pit and gallows.**
The one term probably expressed distinctly enough the
character of the prison kept by the feudal lord, the other
needs no explanation. In after-times, as the power of
the crown enlarged, the tendency of the central govern-
ment was to treat these seignorial powers as abuses, and
to check or neutralise them when they could not be eradi-
cated ; but they had grown with the power of the crown
itself, and became nearly as tough and indestructible.

Such seignorial rights were in many instances conferred
on churchmen, as attached to bishoprics and to abbeys,
or other monastic houses for the government of the
domains attached to them ; and here a balance was per-
haps in some measure established against the pressure of
the hereditary jurisdictions, the influence of which was
met in another direction by that of the burghal com«
munities.

The present is not a proper place for an elucidation of
the minute particulars of this intricate articulation of
powers and dignities, even if there were the means of
accomplishing that task with precision. It must suffice
to mention another and peculiar element which remained
for some time after this period among the seignorial in-
stitutions of Scotland, that of Thanage. This is a well-
known old Saxon institution, but better known than loved
by all readers of Saxon history, from the intricacy and
confusion besetting all attempts to define its nature. It
was swept away before the strict Norman feudality of the
Conquest, but it subsisted long afterwards in Scotland ;
and as the Scots thane was the contemporary of thor-
oughly feudal institutions, his nature and functions came
to differ from those of the extinct Saxon institution, and
thus added a new difficulty to the task of any one who
might attempt to explain the dignities, powers, and duties
of " a thane." The institution was special to the north-
em districts. We have seen how, in the north, a Maar-
mor appears to have struggled with the King of Scots fof

S6 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

an independent authority. In these districts there arc
found, as history dawns on them, chiefs of lower grade
having the title of Toshachs. The Maarmor and these
seem in some way, through the pressure of the crown, to
have resolved themselves into an Earl of Ross, and cer-
tain thanes whose authority and rank were inferior to his.
The earl, of course, had his title from the crown, and the
thanes also were crown dignitaries — nay, it has been
thought that, like the sheriffs, they were servants of the
crown appointed to see after the feudal taxes and other
crown interests in their respective districts. But suppos-
ing all this to be fully established, there is a mystery about
these Scots thanedoms uncleared. The title being an
innovation supplanting that of older local authorities, it is
naturally supposed to have come from England with other
southern usages when Queen Margaret and her followers
flocked to the court of King Malcolm. Yet it is not in
the southern districts frequented by these strangers, but
far to the north and beyond the Grampians, that the in-
stitution is found in its vigour ; and it is hardly a satis^
factory reason for this to say that the strangers who
flocked into Scotland were partly Norman and partly
Saxon, and that the Norman institutions naturally estab-
lished themselves in the south, and the Saxon in the
north.^

^ ** Rarely met with in the south, thanedoms are found mostly in
Angus and Meams and the northern shires down to the Moray Firth.
We must not expect to find tliem in the fertile plains of the Lowlands,
which were speedily and entirely occupied by the southern settlers,
become feudal Barons ; nor yet in the inner fastnesses of the moun-
tains, where the Celtic institutions, unmodified, excluded the Saxon
title or office. But along the borders that separated the races, along
the southern foot of the Grampian hills, through the braes of Angus
and Meams, in the hilly skirts of Aberdeen and Banff, where the
sovereign had established his dominion, imperfectly it may be, but
had not driven out the native people, we find numerous thanes and
lands held in thanage. In the narrow country between Findhom and
the Nairn we have four, some of them of very limited extent, — Dyke,
Brodie, Mo3mess, and Cawdor. Archibald Earl of Douglas granted
to his brother-german James of Douglas, the baronv of Petyn, the
third of Douf hous and Awasschir, and all the lands lying witnin the
Thaynedomeis in the lordship of Kylmalaman {ICilmalemak) in the

EARLY LAWS, 1000-I290. 57

Enough has been said, perhaps, to prepare us for view-
ing the Scotland of the latter part of the thirteenth cen-
tury as a thoroughly feudal state ; at all events, through
all: its authorised channels of announcement committed to
the records, and so brought down to our present notice,
the whole constitution was feudal. Customs antagonistic
to feudality no doubt prevailed in the districts of the
north, and in those chiefly inhabited by Celts. These
customs were so tenacious as to have been troublesome
within the memory of persons still living. But they had
no place in acknowledged law or record; and if they
showed themselves in action, and so disturbed the feudal
harmony of the predominant system, history took lio
further notice of such collisions than to drop some judi-
cious remarks about the suppression of insurrection and
turbulence, and the firm assertion of the powers of the
law.

Of the feudal system thus prevalent we can expect no
account in any edict or code by which it was adopted.
It had its commencement not in precept but in practice,
and grew by degrees. The very supposition of its having
been promulgated by any supreme power is illogical,
since it created in its own growth the whole power of the
state, from the king downwards. It would be interesting,
if it were possible, to examine how it gradually superseded
old forms of administration, whether Celtic or Norse ;
but though we might follow the advance of feudalism
over the country with some approach to accuracy, what it
displaced has left but faint and indistinct traces. In what
may be called the Public Institutions we have scarcely a
trace of anything Celtic. It is usually supposed that the
reign of Malcolm and Margaret was the turning-point at
which the court which had been Celtic became a Saxon

sherifTdoih of Elgin ; confirmed by crown charter of James I. a. n
21-1426. We meet with at least fifty thanedoms named in Scotch
charters.*'— Innes*s Sketches, 397, 398.

Here, and in Mr E. W. Robertson's Scotland under the £arly
Kings, App. N, will be found all the available learning on this
troublesome point

58 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

court, with a dash of the Norman to adorn it ; but of this*
we cannot be sure.^

Though we must look to the records of actual trans-
actions to find the establishment of feudalism as the
radical constitution of the state, it does not follow that
we are not to possess an ancient code of laws for the reg-
ulation of private rights and obligations — for the adjust-
ment of the domestic relations, the enforcement of con-
tracts, the suppression of crime, and the like. The posses-
sion of some such ancient code has been the boast of na-
tions from time immemorial — a boast for which they have
often been indebted to the indolence of historians. There
are difficulties, often ending in utter disappointment, in
tracing consuetudinary laws to their oigin ; but once find
that a Plato or Lycurgus made them — all at once there is
trouble saved, the investigator is able to parade a great
and picturesque historical character, and the reader has
the whole affair simplified to his hand. Hence the long
lists of institutions credited collectively to a Charlemagne
or an Alfred Wales had its code of laws bequeathed by
the celebrated Howel Dha, and Scotland was not behind
her neighbours in such pretensions ; she long boasted of
the collection called the Regiam Majestatem, a full and
carefully-matured code of lafws adapted to the purposes of
a great and civilised state. It was the fruit of the skill
and learning of the Scots lawyers of the twelfth century,
stimulated by the enlightened policy of King David —
hence called the Scots Justinian. In the year 1425
this collection is referred to in one of the statutes of
King James I., in which a commission is appointed "to
examine the buiks of the laws of this realm — ^that is to
say,- the Regiam Majestatem and the Quonium Attachia-
menta — and amend the laws that needs amendment"^
With the exception of a passing doubt by authors so
critical as Sir Thomas Craig or Lord Stair, the collection
was received with acclamation by the commentators and

^ See above (p. 21), the considerations connected with the appr&r«
ance of a Highland sennachie at the coronation of Alexander llL
* Act, 1425, c. 10.

EARLY LAWS, 1000-1290. 59

the practical lawyers ; and it was matter for national satis-
faction and pride when a commission appointed in Queen
Mary's reign to revise and publish- these old laws com-
pleted their functions. So implicitly did public faith
continue to rely on this code as a national treasure, that
when Lord Hailes, at the beginning of the present cen-
tury, published ** An Examination of some of the Argu-
ments for the High Antiquity of the Regiam Majestatem/'
his telling criticism was received with a sort of surly dis-
content, as an unworthy effort to dispel a pleasing vision.

Sir Edward Coke, when, perhaps, he desired to write
in a way that would be not unpleasing to the king sent by
Scotland to England, remarked, that although in recent
times the two kingdoms had been separate and indepen-
dent, yet the ancient constitution and laws of both were
nearly identical, as might be seen by comparing the
Regiam Majestatem, which contains the Scots books of
the common law, with the English collection of Glan-
ville.^ Here he touched, though he intended to do so
with a friendly finger, the impediment that was not to be
got over through the aid of the most sanguine nationality.
It was, of course, an immediate conclusion with some,
that the Englishman had stolen the laws of St David for
the enrichment of his compilation. In the end, however,
it was set beyond all doubt that the Regiam Majestatem
IS little else than a transcript of the Treatise on the Laws
and Constitutions of England, attributed to Randulph
de Glanville, Chief Justice of England in the reign of
Henry IL

A theory was started which might retain the Regiam as
a national code without denying its obligations to Glan-
ville. Edward L, when he deemed himself undoubted
master of Scotland, appointed a sort of mixed commission
of Englishmen and Scotsmen, to report on the compila-
tion, from the legislation of Kmg David and other sources,
of a code of laws for Scotland. It was suggested that the
Regiam Majestatem might be the work of this commis-
sion, who found it easier to make out a complete system

» Inst., iv. 345 ; clxxv. *' of Scotland."

60 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

from the English book than to find one in Scotland. This
theory was almost the reverse of compensation for the
tradition of a purely national code which it displaced.
There are critical reasons against it, too ; and it is plain
that the Regtam was put together by some unknown per-
son soon after the War of Independence. The recollec-
tions of a long period of national popularity are now all
that belong to this celebrated code, unless we may grant
that the readiness with which it was received at an early
day as the exposition of the original laws of Scotland, con*
curs with other evidence to show that it was not until after
the War of Independence that the laws and institutions of
Scotland took a direction of their own, which separated
them by material fundamental differences from those of
England.^

^ Everything critical and documentary for the study of the Ques-
tions about the Regiam will be found in the first volume of the Scots
Acts, edited by Professor Innes. There is some ingenious critical
discussion, pointing to the very manuscript of Glanville which the
Scots compiler may have used, resting on the following explanation
as to a manuscript containing very early versions of the vestiges of .old
Scots laws, which was given to this coimtry by the Canton of Berne :
"The Berne Manuscnpt, which seems to have been in the hands
of a person of consequence in the south of Scotland in the year 1306,
contains a fine copy of Glanville's treatise, which in many of its read*
ings varies slightly from the common manuscripts, and in some of
these variations singularly coincides with the text of the Regiam." —
Preface, 42. More effectual service is, however, done in Uiis criti-
cal in(}uiry, and the whole question is in fact brought to a point by
the printing of the parallel passages in the two works at length. The
name of the Regiam Majestatem is taken from the words with which
the collection begins, " Regiam majestatem non solum armis contra
rebelles in regnumaue insurgentes oportet esse decoratum, set etiam
legibus,** &C. In the same strain the Tractatus de Legibus et Con-
suetudinibus Regni Anglise b^ns, "Regiam potestatem non solum
armis contra rebelles et gentes sibi regnoque insurgentes, oporlet esse
decoratum, sed et legibus," &c It may seem odd, that since the
copyist changed the arrangement of the parts, as if to obviate recog-
nition, he should have thus left so palpable a mark of plagiarism on
the very face of his handiwork. But in fact this rhetorical flourish
was the original property of neither of them. It is in each case av
inflation of the celebrated exordium of Justinian's Institute, anticipate
ing the sentiment, that " Peace hath her victories not less renowned
than war" (Imperatoriam majestatem non solum armis decoratam,
ftc.) After supporting the echo of the proemium in a credilablo

EARLY LAWS, XOOO-1290. 6X

While there can be no doubt that the bulk of the Regiam
Is a mere adaptation of the English treatise, there are some
other morsels incorporated in it which, by careful criticism,
have been identified with laws that had existence, it is
impossible to say how long, in local usage. There are
external traces of such consuetudinary laws limited to dis-
tricts where they may have grown before the King of the
Scots had any concern with them. He obliged himself to
respect the special customs of the Lothians — probably
more thoroughly Anglo-Saxon in their character than any
of the other provincial codes. The special laws of Gallo-
way long remained as exceptional privileges.^ There was
a condition that a native of that country, taking the bene-
fit of the ordinary laws of the realm, was not also to plead
his special privileges as a Galwegian. Among the frag-
ments of the laws of King David is one enjoining that
when the brethren of Melrose are on the track of the dis-

parody to its end, Glanville and tlie Justinian Institute suddenly part
company. Thenceforward the^ exemplify effectually the absolute
contrast of the systems of the avilians and the English common law-
yers. The Institute, as conveying the spirit of the Roman law, pro-
fesses to examine the whole neld which that law, as the law of the
civilised world, occupies, and to divide and subdivide its matter by
strict analysis. The English Chief Justice gets at once into practice ;
he goes over the various forms of procedure for the enforcement of
the common law as if he were the officer who had to give effect to the
decisions of the courts ; and if he explains the matter of the law itself,
it is by way of note on the machinery for putting it in execution. To
carrv out its philosophical division, the Institute is divided into four
books : the first treating of persons in their relation to the law ; the
second, of things as they may become the objects of legal conditions ;
the third, of the mixed relations of persons and things through succes-
sion, contracts, and the like ; and the fourth treating of legal remedies
for the enforcement of rights by effective process. Glanville's treatise,
which in reality is restricted to this last division, professes no arrange-
ment, but is distributed over thirteen books, according to a division
little more tlian arbitrary and for convenience of length. It is curi-
ous, however, to observe that the compiler of the Scots Regiam
divides the matter into four books ; and although he does not aim at
any philosophically exhaustive division^ it may be inferred that he was
acquainted with the Institute, and adopted its four books as a canoni-
cal division for any code of lawb.

^ " Galwydia quse leges suos habet speciales."— St Regis Alex. IL|
Kiv.i anuo 1244.

62 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

covery of robbery, then the lord of the soil shall help
rather than hinder them. The possessions of the rich
abbey had no doubt many temptations, and especially to
men peculiarly inaccessible to the usual administrators of
the law.^

In some of the oldest records of actually adopted laws
— those of King David's reign, for instance — there are
references to previous laws or institutions, which are
spoken of as if they were venerable customs known to
every one. When a man is challenged for theft, and can
find no one to be "broch" or bail for him, he is to be
taken into custody, to be dealt with according to law and
custom.^ In another law, putting a poor and helpless
person who is pillaged under the special protection of the
sovereign, the sufferer is to make oath of the injuries done
to him on the holy altar, as the practice is in Scotland.'

In the Regiam there are some fragments of a mysteri-
ous old code, called the Laws of the Brets and Scots. In
the ordinance of King Edward already referred to these
are denounced ; and it is one of the reasons, and a suffi-
ciently conclusive one alone, for holding his commission-
ers not to be the authors of the Regiam, that these de-
nounced laws make their appearance there. In Edward's
ordinance, the laws of King David, and the amendments
of later kings, are to be the foundation of the new code,
whence it is to be inferred that these were in harmony
with the English laws, as indeed we othenv'ise know that
they were ; but the customs of the Brets and Scots were
specially excluded from the materials out of which the
new code was to be digested. Thus, in fact, the laws
older than the period of Norman or English influence are
denounced, while the more recent laws, stimulated by
English influence, are recommended for preservation and
improvement

^ L^um Dav. I. Vestigia (A. P.), 8i.

" Qualis lex ct consuetudo est dc homine nne plagio.** — Ass.
Keg. Dav., xvii.

» " Super sanctum altare, eo modo quo mos est in Scotia." — Ibid ,
XXX. In other sentences it is "contra assisam regni," "secundum
sMsiiain teme," &c. — See Pref. to Statutes, i. 5a

EARLY LAWS, 1000-1290. 63

A denunciatory criticism of so practical a kind naturally
excites our curiosity about the tenor of these venerable
customs. If what we possess of the " Leges inter Brettos
et Scotos'' be all that ever existed, that code must have
had a limited range. The only thing dealt with is the
pecuniary retribution for slaughter or personal injiU7.
We have first the " kro," " cro," or " croo " of each class
in the social grade. The kro appears to be an estimate
of the absolute value of the person ; the fixing of his rank
in the pecuniary scale, to the effect that the damage to be
paid for any injury inflicted on a person in any one of the
grades, shall bear the same proportion to the damage for
the same injury inflicted on a person of any other grade
which the cro or total value of the one bears to that of
the other. From this valuation table the king is not
exempt His value is estimated at a thousand cows, or
three thousand golden "oras," translated shillings, bear-
ing the inference that a cow was then worth three of these.
The cro of a king's son, or of a Comes Scotiae, Yarl, Maar-
mor, or by whatever other vernacular name known, was
seven times twenty cows and ten — the method of expres-
sing the round number of a hundred and fifty. The cro
of the son of a Comes, or of a Thanus, was a hundred
cows. From this we see that the thane was inferior to the
comes. Besides the son and nephew of a thane, we have
the Ogtiem, supposed to express the rank held by the
fourth in descent from a thane.^ This value, specially
expressed in a mixed medium, is forty-four cows, with
twenty-one denarii, and two parts of a denarius.

The code proceeds to a few details, not easily to be
rendered with satisfactory distinctness, for adjusting the
proportions of the cro to be paid for certain injuries.
That general characteristic of the document which made
it offensive to Norman taste is that, according to a prac-
tice very prevalent in the old laws of the north, it deals
with crimes of violence only as affairs for pecuniary settle-
ment No doubt a code providing no other remedy
against crime would be considered very barbarous at the

' Robertson's Scotland under the Early Kings, i. 240 ; iL a6u

64 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

present day. In Scotland it continued as a feature of the
law when other remedies were available; but we would
require to know the social conditions to which it was ap*
plied before absolutely condemning it, even when standing
alone as the only remedy provided by the law. Violent
retaliation was, perhaps, only too certain to arise without
aid from the state, and there might be a rough element of
civilisation in turning the responsibilities of the offender
into another and less exciting channel.^ There was no

^ One of the fragments of old Scots laws preserves a sort of expod*
tion of the philosophy of the system as an improvement on the natural
law of retaliation, wnich it titles rather perversely as " God's law,"
probably because it is referred to as a tradition in the Sermon on the
Mount The following passage is from an old Scots translation,
though not nearly so old as the law in its primitive shape: "All
laws outhir ar manis law or Goddis law. Be the law of Gode a heid
for a heid, a hand for a hand, an e for an e, a fut for a fut. Be the
law of man for the lyf of a man ixxx ky. For a fut a merk, for a hand
als mekill, for an e half a merk, for ane er als mekil, for a tuih xii
ueniis, for ilk inch of Ijrnth of the wound xii peniis, for ilk inch of
bred of the wound xii peniis," and so forth. — Fragmenta veterum
Legum, Acts, i. 375.

These old laws are all in Latin, but of a considerable portion of
them there is a version in the Scots vernacular. This being (quaint
and old appears the more venerable of the two, because Latin is the
language 01 all periods. In reality, however, the Scots versions are
translations of different and not accurately-ascertained dates, but
generally of the fifteenth century. We have none of these laws in any
language in which the people of their day could have understood
them. It happens, however, that there are dispersed among them
old technical words which the scribes who put the text into Latin did
not translate, not perha^ knowing their meaning, but incorporated,
.with Latin inflections. These in the Latin have a piebald appearance
like macaronics, but when transmuted into the vernacular translation
they appear as if in their right place, and contribute to the venerable
aspiect of the old laws, tor instance, we have a ''stalingiator," a
stall or booth-keeper, who *'nullo tempore potest habere loth cut
neque cavyl de aliquo mercimonio,'* &c.; and this supplies the tech-
nicalities which come aptly into the vernacular version. **Gif a stal-
langear aw ony det til a burges, it sail be leyfull to the burges to tak
his pund of his gudis quhar that evir he fyndis hym wythin tne burgh.
And it is to wyt that na stallangear may hafe na tym loth cut or cavvU
vryih a bui^ges of ony maner of merchandise, but in the tym of the
fayris ouhen that ilk man may hafe loth and cavyll wythin the kyngis
burgh." — L^. Burg., liv.

Another ordinance begins, "Si quis verberando fecerit aliqucu

EARLY LAWS, 1000-1290. 65

phiIos(^hical system of prison discipline to fall back upon ;
and perhaps it was as good a way as any then available
for keeping alive a sense of the folly of violence, tliat it
diminished the offender's herds, or established a perman-
ent debt against him. Barbarous as the Normans thought
this pecuniary adjustment, it has come down to our own
days, and lives vigorously in our practice. There was
ever in Scotland the law of assysthement, which counted
that the slayer, if he might sometimes be a criminal, was
always a debtor ; and the adjustment of the debt to the
value of the life taken has been applied with new niceties
and variations in the charges to juries on questions of
damage for railway accidents.

There are other vestiges of early laws, of which the most
important is the Code of the Burgher Corporations, to be
dealt with further on.^ In these we may find further rough
attempts to accomplish fairness and justice, assuming
shapes which, however uncouth or unadapted to philoso-
phical principles of jurisprudence, have never, in Britain
at least, been utterly discarded in more enlightened ages,
but have been modified to the exigencies of social changes.
It would be difficult to find anything that can be paralleled
to trial by jury, where a learned judge finds the law, and
a body of ordinary citizens find the fact. But we see its

blaa et blodi ipse qui fuerit blaa et blodi prius debet," &c. It deals
with assaults which make blue and bloody, and is in the vernacular,
*' Gif ony man strykis anothir quharthruch he is mayd blaa and blody,
he that is mayd blaa and blody sal fyrst be herde quethir he cumys
fyrst to plenze or nocht. And gif that bathe be blaa and blodi, he
that first plenzeis hym sal first be herde." — Leg. Burg., Ixxxii.

* That there were others to which we have no longer access is shown
by the inventories of writs removed by King Edward. *' In these are
preserved the titles and general description of a vast number of rolls,
in which there must have been entries of all sorts of parliamentary
matter, of public transactions, of judicial proceedings, and, above all,
of legislative acts and ordinances. Among the records removed from
Edinburgh by the orders of Edward L, and afterwards restored in
part to John Baliol, but of the subsequent fate of which we are igno-
rant, there were, C/nus Rotulus de antiquis Statutis Regni Scocie ;
Unus Rotulus de Statutis Regis Malcolmi et Regis David ; and Duo
Rotuli de Legibus et Assisis Regni Scocie et de Legibus et Consuetudinihus
fturgorum Scocie et de quibusdam Statutis editis per Reges Scocie"-^
Act Pari, i., Pref. 14, 15.

VOL. II. E

66 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

unshapen germs in the prevalence of Compurgation. The
accused is '^assoiled'^ or cleansed if his neighbours stand
by him and hold him to be innocent. There is great
practical influence given to the broch, pledge, or bail,
by which one citizen becomes responsible for another.
Throughout there is scope given to the neighbourly spirit
— the influence which the opinion of a man's fellows is to
have upon his destiny, so that it shall not be entirely
at the mercy of some great lord or royal officer, as in a
purely despotic country.

In the laws specially attributed to King David, the
purgation comes nearer the shape of a jury. In the very
serious case in which the king pursues a man on a charge
of felony, or for forfeiture of life or limb, he is protected
or acquitted by the oath of twenty-four leal men abiding
within the sheriffdom.^

If one charges another with reft or theft, and the accused
asserts that the accuser did not possess the wherewithal
which he maintains to have been taken from him, he may
go to the country or the neighbours on that fact, and if
the decision be in his favour he is acquitted.^ So also if
one is claiming damage for the slaughter of a relation, or
the burning of his house, the other may get the judgment
of the faithful men of the court on the question whether
the amount claimed is or is not excessive.^ A little later,
in a statute of Alexander II., a person accused of theft or
robbery may throw himself on the judgment of the neigh-
bours.* In one of David's laws, four lines long, there is
an alternative given to one accused of theft : he may offer
battle, or throw himself on the purgation of twelve faithful
men.* No one will stand up for the former of these alter-
natives as a rational law worthy of living into our own

^ Assisa Regis Davidis, xi. : ** De felonia vel de vita et mcmbro "*
The conjunction is not logically expressed. The acquittal is, *' Per
sacramentum viginti quatuor hominum legalium."

' Ibid., vi.: *' Proportatio patriae vel visneti."

* Ibid., vii. : ** Per viros fidedignos curia."

* Statuta Alexander II., vi. : ** Proportatio visneti."

* Assisa Davidis II. : ** Utrum velit duellum vel purgacionem duo*
decim iidelium hominum/*

EARLY LAWS, 1 000-1290. 67^

times, though Wager of Battle was once actually demanded
in England within the present century as a protection,
against the oppressiveness of the criminal law; and the
proposal was backed by scholarly and sincere reasoners
maintaining that, while the oppressive right called Appeal
in Murder remained in the law, the old ordeal of Battle
should remain too, as a mitigation of its influence.^ It
frequently comes up in these fragments of old laws ; and
all that can be said for it is, that it is grasped at along with
other rough remedies as if to throw the life and liberty of
the citizen on any available alternative rather than the
absolute power of a ruler. In their dealings with this
peculiar legal remedy, the old laws make no allusion to
any special intervention from on high giving supernatural
strength to the weak arm advocating a just cause. There
is nothing in sight of the lawgiver, so far as he expresses
himself, but a fair stand-up fight and victory to the stronger.
Simple as such a method of settlement might seem, how-
ever, there were difficulties in its adaptation to the con-
dition of society in the thirteenth century. It was a rule,
but of comparatively late adoption, that churchmen must
for decorum's sake be exempt from fighting, whatever their
ability ; and widows who cannot fight must be protected
in their rights. Hence there is a complicated arrangement
for an assize out of three baronies.^ It seems to have been
found, too, that a miscellaneous fighting throughout all
ranks would not in the end tend to the orderly administra-
tion of justice. The law had to discover more civilised
methods of judicial remedy before it could put them equally
into the hands of all classes to be used by them against
each other. If the keorl or churl arraignetl of theft by a
person of higher rank was entitled to fight out the afiair,
there would of necessity be a good deal of confusion favour-
able to the strong-handed thief. The thief's lord might
fight the accuser of his own rank if he would — a privilege
not likely perhaps to be abused — but the man of humble

^ See * An Argument for construing largely the right of an Appelle
of Murder to insist on Trial by 13atile,' by E. A. KendalL
* Stat. Al. II.. V.

68 PROGRESS OF THE NATION,

birth could only challenge his fellow. To remove some
inconveniences caused by these restraints, there was a
remedy which enabled the man of higher rank to fight by
deputy.^ This does not carry commendation on its face,
yet it worked itself afterwards into an established organisa-
tion of the English administration of justice. The peace-
ful spirit of municipal life begins to show itself at this early
period in the restraints on the ordeal of combat in the
burghal code. To prohibit it altogether would have been
too radical a measure, and might indeed have compromised
the rank taken by the burgesses. It does not appear that
the burgesses dwelling within any town were restrained
from the combat with each other. If a rusticus, having
a right of burgage within a town but not dwelling there,
challenged a resident burgess, the burgess was not bound
to fight ; but if he in his turn were the challenger, the non-
resident burgess required to accept the combat. When
an upland man not connected with the burgh challenged
a burgess, the burgess was not bound to fight, unless it
were either on a plea of treason or a question of " theme "
or thraldom. Any way the burgess must not fight with the
upland man save outside the burgh.^ In the laws of the
guild brotherhood of the great city of Berwick there are
careful regulations for the suppression of strife. A blow
with the hand was punished with the fine of half a mark.
Where blood was drawn the established fine was twenty
solidi, and such damages as the brethren might award to
the wounded man. It was made penal to carry a pointed
knife within the bounds of the guild.^ Another spirit in-
fluenced the laws of the borders by which the bretliren
would have to settle with their neighbours of England.
No testimony of witnesses was available to an Englishman
in Scotland, and if his claim was disputed it could only be
tried by the body of man.*

^ Stat. Alex. II., viii.

• Leges Burg., xi. and xii. — In the vernacular translation : **The
burges may nocht fecht upon na man that wonnys on the lande bit he
ga first ututh the burgh."

• Statuta Gildae, 7 and 8.

• " Per corpus hominis." — Consuetudines Marchiarum.

EARLY LAWS, IOOO-1290. O9

Scattered throughout these rough old laws are occasional
uncouth touches of compassion or fair play. The gallows
we find in use ; but in the very beginning of a set of laws
attributed to King David is one which shows that the
hangmen of the age were not expert. If the thief brought
to the gallows escape with his life the first suspension, it
is not to be repeated, and he shall thenceforth be quits
with the law, and not liable to punishment for his past
offence, while those who so blundered his hanging are
liable to a heavy fine.^ This is in the true Anglo-Saxon
spirit, which, down even to this day, loves to give to the
criminal as well as to the hunted fox, what is called " law,"
by encouraging any legal difficulty that may enable him to
distance his pursuers. Where criminals were caught in
the act — the thief " backbearand," or carrying his plunder
on his back, the murderer "red-hand** — summary justice
was administered ; everything was then clear, and there
was no occasion for those vexing and perplexing arrange-
ments about compurgators, or the vote of the neighbour-
hood, which made the clumsy protection of the innocent.

The animals at the present day peculiar to the farm were
the staple element of movable wealth in these early days,
as we have seen by their use as a measure of value in re-
tribution for offences. Among the laws attributed to the
reign of William the Lion is a very characteristic division
of the crime of stealing such stock, into a higher and a
lower grade. When the prey requires to be driven, it is
of the higher ; when it can be carried off, the lower offence
is committed. In the vernacular translation the law is
called " Byrthen-sack," in reference to what one may
carry as a burden ; and declares that no man should be
hanged save for what is equivalent to the value of two
sheep, each worth sixteen pence. If one is arraigned for
the theft of a calf or a ram, or as much as he may carry
on his back, let him be tried at the court of the lord of
the land, where he ought to be beaten or have his ear cut
off in the presence of two leal men.* Many years have

* Assisse Regis Davidis I.

• Assisae Regis Willclmi, xiii. : ** Debet verberari vel auriculam ab-

76 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

bery is given to the poor. In the mere creature of popu-
lar legends we are not likely to find a parallel with the
history of a great military leader and statesman, yet it is
interesting to observe how like the Robin Hood of the
English is to the legendary Wallace of Scotland. They are
especially alike in each marking local peculiarities by his
popular name. England is covered with such recollections
of her outlaw — Robin Hood's Bay, Robin Hood's Chair,
Kobin Hood's Bed, Robin Hood's Wells, Robin Hood's
Leap, and the like, all putting a mark on peculiarities in
local scenery. It is the same with Wallace in Scotland ;
and in both the commemorations it is easy to see that this
tenacity of popularity is founded on traditions which had
their origin in great wrongs and deadly hatreds. In Eng-
land these began with the Norman conquest — ^in Scotland
they began with Edward's invasion.

Recurring to the faint vestiges of anything in Scotland
resembling the English forest laws, it deserves mention
that in late years a great territorial lord, endowed with
something of the Norman spirit of monopoly in sport, did
some service by trying how far prerogative forest laws,
if they ever existed in Scotland, could be put in force.
Whatever they were, they had not been checked, as in
England, by guarantees like the Charters of the Forests ;
such as they were, they were unrepealed. He maintained
that he was bound to plead the prerogatives of the crown,
since the land he held was a royal forest, committed in a
manner to his care, so as to throw on him a special respon-
sibility for the protection of its immunities. He main-
tained two prerogatives: one was the right to close all
communication through the forest between two districts of
country ; the other was a right to enter on the lands of
neighbouring proprietors and reclaim from them the deer
which had strayed from the royal forest The courts of
law found that there was no distinct law to support such
claims — virtually they found that there was no old Scots
forest law, and no restraints on personal freedom and the
free use of property otherwise than by statute. It is signi-
ficant that the chief support sought for the prerogative

PERSONAL FREEDOM, 1000-1290. 77

side in these litigations, was something said by Lord Stair,
a lawyer trained in the high prerogative school of Charles
IL's reign.^

^ Athole V. Macinroy, 28th Feb. 1862, reported in the case books.
Among the views given out from the Bench were : *'Lord Braxfield,
a great feudal lawyer, observed, — ' In Scotland, wild beasts being;^*^
ncUura were not the property of the crown ;* and in the well-known
case of the Earl of Aboyne against Innes, the elder Lord Meadow-
bank denounces the English notion that the right of game is in the
crown, as ' a mere subtlety of the Norman lawyers ' whidi has no solid
foundation.

*' In support of his plea, the pursuer refers to a passage in Stair
(ii. 2, 68) where it is said, ' The hunting or killing of deer seems to be
inter regalia with us, except those who have them within proper en-
closures ; for otherwise, tne king's forest having no enclosures, the
deer by straying abroad would easily be destroyed,' &c. No autho-
rity is given by Lord Stair for the opinion here expressed ; and so far
as the Lord Ordinary can discover, it has not been adopted or recog-
nised either in the judgments of the courts or by our most approved
institutional writers.'* — Note by the Lord Ordinary.

The Lord Justice-Clerk remarked on the same passage : " Indeed,
were it not for a somewhat remarkable passage in Lord Stair, it may
well be doubted whether the present claim would ever have been
made.*'

73

CHAPTER XVII.

PROGRESS OF THE NATION TO THE WAR OF

INDEPENDENCE.

{Continued.)

THE GERMS OF PARLIAMENT— ITS RELATION TO THE OLDEST LAWS —
THE ASSEMBLAGES OF NATIONAL COUNCILS — THEIR CONSENT TO
GREAT NATIONAL ACTS — RISE OF THE BLTRGHAL CORPORATIONS-
DIFFERENT GRADES OF CORPORATIONS — POWER AND WEALTH OF
THE CORPORATIONS — THEV FORM A SEPARATE PARLIAMENT OR
COUNCIL— INTERIOR ECONOMY OF THE BURGHS — INFLUENCE ON PRO-
GRESS OP FREEDOM— RELATIONS WITH FOREIGN MUNICIPALITIES —
THE BURGH FRANCHISE— THE EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGES — GREATNESS
OF BERWICK— TOWN DWELLINGS— RURAL DWELLINGS— DWELLINGS
OF THE NOBILITY COMPARED WITH THE ECCLESIASTICAL BUILD-
INGS— NO NORMAN CASTLES — MAGNIFICENCE OF THE REMAINS OF
NORMAN CHURCHES — TESTIMONIES TO THE WEALTH OF THE COUN-
TRY BEFORE THE BREAKING OUT OF THE WAB^-COMMERCE, AGRI-
CULTURE, AND RURAL ECONOMY.

It may seem illogical to speak of the laws themselves first,
and of law-makers afterwards, but the bulk of the old col-
lections of laws are of uncertain origin ; and at the period
we have reached we have no distinct hold of a legislative
body, unless it may be that which, as we shall presently
see, acted for theburghal communities. In the very early
times we have nothing even so substantial as the unsatis-
factory Witenagemot of the Anglo-Saxons, to be the parent
of the subsequent Parliament. As to the collections of
laws referred to in the preceding pages, with the excep
tion of the small additions made to them by Kiiig David
and his successors, we do not know whether any of them
were established by competent legislative authority, or the

OLD LAWS, 1000- 1 290. 79

whole grew out of local usage. The small contribution
made in the name of each of these kings is generally called
an " assize/' or sitting. The word Parliament had not
come into general use. No assembly had as yet called
itbcif a Parliament on its record, yet the term must have
been in colloquial use, since, as we have seen, it was sti-
pulated in the Treaty of Brigham, in 1 289, that no Parlia-
ment should be held out of Scotland to treat of Scots
affairs. The earliest Parliament — so calling itself on the
record — is that of 1292, held by John Baliol at Scone, of
which we shall presently have to speak. The Assizes are
generally in the name of the king. There is very little
absolute law in them, and they may be said chiefly to con-
sist of good advice and regulations for the preservation
of order, civility, and good morals, which there was no
punishment, penalty, or other sanction for enforcing.^

These scraps of legislation are in some instances sanc-
tioned by the magnates of the kingdom, and even by the
community at large, but generally they are in the name of

* Thus there is a precept of mutual forbearance and hospitality in
the matters of persons going to the king's court or throughout the
country on their own lawful business. They are not to go in bands for-
midably large, and are not to waste or rieve upon the lands they pass
through ; but are to solicit harbourage from the lord of the soil, and
contentedly take what he gives them. As the vernacular translation
has it : ** Alsua in thar way the house of quhatsumevir lord thai cum to
at evyn tyd til hym thai sal pray for berbery, and eftirwart quhen thai
haf gottyn grant of the samyn efter the maner of the contre, thai sal enter
in the housis, and fra thaim be the whilkis thai ar herberyt, nouthir
met no othyr thyng thruch violence thai sal tak," and so on (27). By
another of David's laws it is commanded, or rather recommended,
that the owners of land pasture their cattle upon their own fields, and
not on those of their neighbours, as it seems had been the custom
— **hiddertil thai war wont to do" (ibid., 26), says the vernacular
translation : in a country where property in land is distinctly marked
off by law, the law would require no such supplementary provision.
There is one very curious little provision in these laws. If one slays
another man's watch-dog {wache hund in the vernacular version), the
slayer must himself protect for a year and day the unwatched home-
stead {fimarium^ translated "mydden") and is responsible to the owner
for any scathe that may befall within that period after the slaying of
the dog. It is among the same set of quaint neighbourly regulations
that the law against hanging a man for stealing as much of uie flock
or herd as he can carry away is found (p. 14S).

«0 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

the king alone. It does not follow that they were drawn
by himself, or that he ventured to issue them unbacked
by the countenance of his advisers. It has been all along
the constitutional practice in Britain to issue legislative
proceedings in the name of the sovereign, and the Acts of
Parliament of the present day are by title the doing of the
sovereign by advice and consent. Of these old Acts we
only possess copies in which preambles and other formal
matters are not repeated. There are other regal acts of
David and his successors, of which we have not merely
casual copies but the actual record, and that because they
were not merely general laws or precepts addressed to the
country at large, but were documents imparting important
rights to persons of consequence or to communities, and
they were consequently preserved like title-deeds with all
their formalities and appendages. In these, when they
contain matter of far less importance than the most incon-
. siderable of the assizes, we invariably find some body of
men concurring, whether as the councillors who have
taken the responsibility of recommending or countenanc-
ing the step taken, or as persons whose assent was neces-
sary to render the royal act effective.

The growth of the feudal Parliament in Scotland follows
exactly, though lagging a considerable way behind, its
growth in England. The king acts with "concilium " or
council, a word which has led to deep misunderstandings,
since it has been supposed to refer to a counciif or estab-
lished body of responsible advisers, whereas it really
means the counsel or advice given him by those he con-
sulted. It is one of the natural consequences of this con-
fusion of meaning that an assembling together is a neces-
sity of the one, but not of the other, since the advice of
the several councillors may have been taken separately.
The advisers are at first few in number, but they extend
and become systematised into the Estates of Parliament.
To their progress towards completeness as a legislative
tribunal much assistance was given by the necessities of
kings, and their applications for money beyond the amount
of the feudal taxes and casualties which they were entitled
10 take without any vote of consent.

The critical position of the country at the point which

GERMS OF PARLIAMENT, 1000-T290. 8 1

we have reached seems to have rapidly enlarged the at-
tendance of the notables, or dignified clergy and great
landholders. Those assembled in 1283 at Scone to ac«
knowledge the Maiden of Norway as the heir to the
throne, consisted of thirteen earls and twenty-four barons
or kifights. There were no churchmen present, nor did
the Act in which the assembly embodied its resolution
j>ass in the name of the king. The whole proceeding
seems to have been of a purely feudal character — those
who held the great fiefs of the crown declaring whom it
was that they were to acknowledge as their superior.^
The convention at Brigham in 1289 about the marriage
of the Princess with the Prince of England, consisted,
besides the four guardians, of ten bishops, twelve earls,
twenty-three abbots, eleven priors, and forty-eight barons.
In the address which they sent to King Edward, their
names were enumerated as if with a view to impress him
with the number and influence of those who desired to
further the projected union.^

But besides the roll of magnates, lay and clerical, who
gave their counsel to the sovereign, the records reveal
another element of authority in the country — an element
mentioned fugitively and briefly, yet so distinctly that it
can be seen to be of a popular character. Hence it has
been naturally an object of much criticism and specula-
tion, not always coming to any distinct satisfactory con-
clusion. The facts in themselves are soon told. For in-
stance, take a statute of King Alexander II., bearing date
in 1230, for restricting the privilege of knights and barons
to borrow or become bail for persons accused of crimes,
beyond the circle of their own followers. It was passed
in the presence of two churchmen and five laymen, who
are named, and of " many others." Then it is recorded
that the king passed the measure with the advice and
consent of those present, and of the whole community.^

Another Act, dated in 1244, professed to have been

J Act. Pari, i., Pref. 7 ; Act Al. III., p. 82.

Acta Margaritje, p. 85.

' "Statuit Dominus Rex Alexander, apud Striveling per consilium
ei assensum corundum magnatum et tocius communitatis suae." — St.
Alex. II., iv,

VOL. IL F

82 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

passed with the consent of certain magnates, whose
names are given, and of many otlicr earls, barons, and
other the king's worthy men of Scotland.^ Still broader,
and, it must be admitted, vaguer, is the tenor of certain
charters to the first great religious houses established in
Scotland on the Catholic revival, inaugurated by St
Margaret. In the foundation of the Abbey of Dunferm-
line, of the Abbey of Holyrood, and perhaps in other
instances, the king acts on his royal authority and power,
with the consent and attestation of the bishops, earls, and
barons of his realm, and the acquiescence of the clergy
and people.^

No collateral light is found to aid us in reading the?e
curious intimations. They stand by themselves, an ac-
knowledgment — sincere or not — of the admission of
popular influence in the actions of the government
More than one attempt has been made to show that the
popular element was no other than the representation of
the municipal corporations in Parliament.*

In fact, however, the municipal corporations had a
political position of their own, too distinct and important
to let us suppose that it could be referred to in these
vague acknowledgments. Apart apparently from the
landed aristocracy and the Church, they were consolidat-
ing a power of their own, which enabled them to form a
leading element in the more elaborately constructed parlia-
ments of later times.

^ ** Et alioinim comitum, baronum ct proborum hominum suonixn
Scocie." — St. Alex. II., xiv.

' If we must not take the charter of Malcolm III., about coeval
with the Conquest, as genuine, we have the terms repeated in the
later confirmations: ''In nomine sancti Trinitatis, ego Alexander,
Dei gratia Rex Scot!??, auctoritate regia ac potestate, episcoporum,
comitum, baronumque regni mei consensu atque testimonio, clero.
etiam adquiescente et populo." — Act Alex. II., Apx. 76*. See also
the Introdiiction to the Register of Dunfermline, edited for the
Hannatyne Club. The *' Clero etiam adquiescente et populo " will
be found in the charter of erection of Ilolyrood by King David, lic-
fore the year 1 1 50. in Acta Regis Davidis, 46*.

' In ' Observations concerning the Public Law and the Constittb
tional History of Scotland,' by Gilbert Stuart, this view is set foith
with that resounding march of rolling sentences cf which be wa& a
special master.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1000-1290. S3

Before parting company with Roman dominion iiv Scot-
land, something had to be said about those eminent
departments of the Empire — the Municipalities. Some
of these, near the centre of Roman government, can trace
back their municipal existence to the days of the Republic, .
and of many others it may be said that as early an origin
is likely enough, though it cannot be shown. We have,
nothing to prove that in Scotland any of the institutions
of the Romans outlived . the confusions following on their .
departure. It is certain, however, that whenever the
greater portion of the provinces north of the Tweed
became consolidated into a state, municipalities on the
Roman model grew rapidly within it. The form of this
kind of organisation had been so perfected that it could
be extended from place to place with entire ease, and it
adapted itself at once to the organisation and government
of any considerable body of men collected on one spot
We are not to suppose that those who propagated the
system were deeply read in the books of the Roman law.
Indeed, they might have searched these to the utmost
without finding much to guide them; for it may be
noticed that, loquacious as the civilians are in stating and
solving abstract cases of legal difficulty, they are shy in
dealing with the practical institutions of the Kmpire, and
what we know of these, in fact, has only been extracted
by slow degrees out of literature and history. It was from
the still living practice of these institutions over tlie
Roman world of the Continent that they passed into
Britain, where there were social and political conditions
that made them acceptable, and gave them a firm rooting.
AVhile the internal machniery of these institutions was
taken precisely from the Roman model, there were in
their political relation to other members of the state not-
able differences of a very instructive kind. There were
marked dissimilitudes between the standing of corpora-
tions in some parts of Europe and their standing in others ;
and some of the corporations, such as those of England
and Scotland, though in their internal structure they were
copies of the Roman municipalities, had not the same
relation towards the ruling power. In some parts of
Europe the municipalities were so powerful that, in the

84 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

reconstruction of the several powers during the middle
ages, they worked themselves into separate states ; such
were Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Hamburg. Even in
Russia the municipal authority was so powerful that it
nad a long contest with the royal or imperial authority ;
and it used to be a common saying in reference to the
mighty power of the chief corporation there, ** Who can
resist the great God and Novgorod?" In Britain, all the
corporations were subsidiary to the supreme power. In
the corporation of London only do we find the relics of
some bold efforts to achieve an independent legislative
existence — an aim in which so potent a community might
have succeeded in a country with a less sufficient central
government than England.

Great and small, we can best understand the special
character of the corporations by looking on them as mighty
relics of the Roman Republic. Rome was itself a great
republican corporation; and when it conquered far and
wide, it naturally would not place its acquisitions under
monarchs, but multiplied over them the forms of its own
republican institutions. These were not congenial to the
imperial government, but the municipal system was firmly
rooted long before the Empire, and there was still a suf-
ficient framework of republicanism in the imperial city
itself to keep the corporate arrangements alive. Thus the
corporations during the subsistence of the old Empire were
so far different from those of later times, that they all held
by, and were dependent on, the great corporation of Rome
as a centre. By their later constitution, which still nomi-
nally exists, some of them became, as we have seen, sepa-
rate states, while others were dependent on monarchs, or
on great spiritual or temi)oral lords. The tendency of
their spirit was, however, antagonistic to feudalism, and
they proved generally to be separate plebeian or republican
institutions having a separate interest against the aristo-
cracy, — an interest which was apt to bring them into alli-
ance with monarchies.

It was especially so in Scotland. The highest kind of
corporation — the Royal Burgh — has always been the direct
creature of the crown. It must, according to the theory of

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1000-1290. 85

the law, have been created by royal charier ; and in some
instances where no such charter has been found, and where
perhaps none ever existed, the law, on proof of immemorial
possession of the privileges of a royal burgh, has presumed
that a royal charter of erection once existed. The char-
tered royal burgh in its corporate capacity was the same
thing in the feudal hierarchy as a great lordship holding
<lirectly of the crown. There was this specialty in its
constitution, that within the bounds of its privileges it
could not subfeu and create vassals subservient to it, as a
great lord could on his domains. Every burgess was a
direct vassal of the crown. This distinction is curiously
and expressively marked in the conveyancing of the pre-
sent day. Suppose one trader should buy from another
two houses in the town they live in, one of them within
the old chartered burgh, the other in a portion of the
town stretching beyond it : for the burghal tenement, as it
is called, the purchaser becomes a vassal of the crown ;
for the other it may be convenient that he should be-
come the vassal of the seller, and acknowledge his
brother trader as his feudal lord.

There were, from the earliest time within the period of
records, two other kinds of municipal corporation — the
Burgh of Regality and the Burgh of Barony. The simplest
account of the difference between these is, that while each
held in vassalage not directly of the crown, but of some
great lordship, the regality, with the burghal community
belonging to it, was of higher rank, and swayed a greater
power than the barony. The regality, with which we have
already made some acquaintance as a feudal dignity, pro-
fessed, indeed, to be a communication to its holder of the
royal prerogatives, after the fashion in which the papal
prerogatives were communicated to a legate a latere.
Burghs of regality and of barony thus held in the feudal
hierarchy, not of the monarch, but of some great lordship.
Whenever the law was interpreted for the crown, it was
always maintained that a royal charter was necessary for
the creation of either. On the other side, some of the
great heads of feudal houses, who in Scotland so often
came near to rivalling the monarch, professed to create

86 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

such corporations. The cro\iTi asserted its prerogative
either by extinguishing such a grant or sanctioning it, and
probably adopted this latter alternative when the other
would have been preferred had it been sure to succeed.
Thus in one way or other, down to the time when govern-
ment got into a settled shape and kept to precedent, the
crown preserved the prerogative right of giving life to
municipal corporations of all grades. Some of the regality
and barony corporations became rich and powerful, and then
were raised to the rank of royal burghs. Several of them
held under ecclesiastical lordships, such as the great ab-
beys, and these had generally a far better lot than those
which were under the banner of quarrelsome lay lords.

No higher class of municipal corporation than the royal
burgh was known to the law. The civitas, or city of the
Romans, which is understood to have expressed a central
corporation governing others of inferior degree, was not
an institution of Britain. Some towns were called cities
by way of distinction, but this was done from accidental
conditions which gave no special powers to their governors
. or representatives. Edinburgh became a city as the seat
of royalty. When the great Italian municipalities revived
after the fall of the seat of empire, the ecclesiastical part
of the imperial system, which so effectively survived the
political, took them in hand, and the bishops became their
rulers. Owing, it is said, to this specialty, a certain
municipal rank was permitted to accompany a bishop's
see, and in England the cathedral town came to be called
a City. The practice seems to be represented in St
Andrews in Scotland, and in Glasgow, which was for cen-
turies in burghal rank a mere burgh of barony.

Such terms as ** municipality'' and " corporation " are
not to be traced back to ancient use in Scotland. It is
not likfely that any of the framers of the corporations knew
that they were copying institutions invented by the Romans.
They were spread over Europe, and found their way to
this country, where they were eminently adapted to the
spirit of the people. The name by which they were called
hears witness to the purposes for which they were devised.
The word " brodi,-' both in England and Lowland Scot

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1000-1290. 8/

land, meant one who pledged himself for another, or be-
came bail for him. So in the English form of " borough,"
and in the Scots of " burgh " or " burrow," it meant a
community, who, united together in a common lot and
cause, were pledges or securities for each other. The
position of these communities, indeed, could not be better
expressed. Holding their own as they did against the
powers of the feudal aristocracy, and sometimes, against
the monarchs who were in use to make common cause
with them, they found that in their hands the capacity of
the numerous weak to stand up through the influence of
combination against the individually strong, was sorely
testeii.

The Roman municipalities, as we have seen, were sub-
ordinate to the great central corporation, Rome ; and even
after the Empire this subordination was to the republican
elements of the chief city rather than to the imperial.
There was thus an assimilation between the central author-
ity and all its adherents not to be found in the feudal
corporations. Yet efforts were made to keep up a respon-
sibility to the power of the crown by appointing a great
officer to take charge of the burghs, and see that all things
went as they should within their walls. This high officer
was the Lord Chamberlain. He was required to hold
stated Iters, or circuits of visitation, in order to see that
all the functionaries in the burghs performed their proper
duties. One of the oldest of the old collections of lav/s
sets forth, with extreme distinctness all the duties as to the
due performance of which it is his duty to make investiga-
tion. These need not be repeated here, as they are of the
kind of matter which, whether dealing with ancient or with
modem affairs, forms dry reading to those who do not
happen to have some special source of interest in them. ^
This kind of central responsibility does not seem to have
assimilated itself, like that of old Rome, to the corporate
spirit. The functions of the chamberlain gradually fell
out of use and were lost ; we have, indeed, scarcely any

' lie* Cnmeraiii, of which the best edition is in the first volume of
the Scots Acts.

88 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

trace of their existence, except in the elaborate code in
which they were set forth, and probably they were a great
project found not to work. The burghal corporations at
all events ceased to be under control, and as independent
communities scattered over the realm it was necessary that
their powers should be limited, otherwise there could be
no supreme government. Before, however, they felt the
restraint of king and parliament, where they had their re-
presentatives to console them for loss of separate power,
they had perhaps accomplished their mission by establish-
ing several little centres of reaction against the predomi-
nance of feudal or aristocratic power.

As with the seignorial powers which were in vital force
before the crown professed to create them, so it seems to
have been with the municipal bodies, and their incorpo-
ration under the crown became thus a compromise, by
which, on the one hand, their powers were kept within
certain limits, and on the other they got the countenance
and protection of the monarch. It is certain that mention
is made even in royal documents of the existence of
burghs long before the time when there is trace of any
royal charter of erection having been granted. Perhaps the
oldest known charter absolutely bringing a burgh into
existence is that in which, about the year 1200, William
the Lion created the burgh of Ayr, to be convenient to
the castle which he had there built at the mouth of the
river. But charters much earlier reveal that there were
burghs in existence and recognised by name at the time
when they were issued; for instance,* some fifty years
earlier. King David grants to his mother's Abbey of
Dunfermline property in his burghs of Edinburgh, Perth,
Stirling, Haddington, and Dunfermline.^ In fact, the
extent of the trading and municipal power that had grown
in Scotland before the War of Independence is not easily
realised, on account of the supremacy which feudalism
obtained over it after the termination of the war. The
crown is found with a liberal hand endowing municipal!*
ties with powers and privileges ; yet it is easy to see that

^ Report, Commission oi Inquiry as to Royal Borghii

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1000-1290. 89

the liberality of the crown is measured by the power and
influence already in possession of those whom it professes
to favour. By one brief but very remarkable charter,
King William the Lion gives the royal authority in a
general way to municipal powers, which seem to have
been too wide, alike in their character and their territorial
extent, to be specifically defined by the ofllicer who pre-
pared the crown writs. This document professes to con-
firm privileges which existed in the reign of King David.
They were possessed by the burgesses of Aberdeen and of
Moray, and in fact by all the burgesses north of the Gram-
pians ; and the nature of the privilege was the holding
of a free " ansus " where and when they pleased.^ The
ansus was a privilege of trade and association. What its
exact technical meaning may have been it is difficult
clearly to define ; but of the extent to which these might
reach we know by the example of the great Continental
association of the Hanse Towns. ^

About the time when the municipalities were first re-
presented in parliament, dubious theories already referred
to have been afloat : in these it seems to have always
been taken as a point in favour of the antiquity of the
popular element in the Scots Parliament that they held
an early place in it. It may be questioned, however,
whether, in their palmy days before the great war, a junc-
tion with the feudal parliament, such as it then was, must
liave been of necessity an object in the direction of their
aggrandisement.

1 ** Burgensibus meis de Aberdeen, et omnibus burgensibus de
Moravia, et omnibus meis ex aquilonali parte de Munth manentibus,
liberum ansum suum tenendum ubi voluerint et quando voluerint." —
L^. Dav. I. Vestigia, A. P. i. 77.

^ PIansa Mercatorum Societas — Collegium Hansatus, in
hansam — id est societatem admissus, ex-German. Hansen, in nume-
rum sociorum recipere. Du Cange Glos. We have, both in Eng-
land and Scotland, the term handsel or hansel for the first money a
trader received for goods— the realised beginning of transactions. It
is used for the gratuities given after New- Year's Day, on *^ Hansel
Monday" the equivalent in Scotland of ** Boxing Day " in England.
The Germans have apparently from the same source the verb hansel^
.Co iniliatc.

go PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

Looking forward, we find the earliest parliament ifi
which the representatives of corporations held a secure
place to be Bruce's great Parliament of 1326, when a
supply was voted to meet the pecuniary cost of the War
of Independence. In the mean time the burghs had be-
come so much more matured for combined constitutional
action than the other powers of the state, that they were
organising themselves into a sort of separate parliament.
How it fared with the Hanse associations north of the
Grampians, and whether they ever showed head or
ftrength, we now know not. It is pretty clear that no
ruch associated institution survived the great war, al-
though several eminent burghs arose out of its separate
elements.

In the south, however, there was a burghal parliament.
When we first make acquaintance with it, it is cahed trie
Court of the Four Burghs. These were Edinburgn, Ber-
wick, Stirling, and Roxburgh, and it seemed to have /re-
tained its old name when other corporations joiiieU it.
Its functions were that mixture of the judicial and iue
legislative always found in the earlier legislative assernbiics
of modem Europe. It reviewed the decrees of the I^id
Chamberlain in questions where individual corporations
were concerned, as the English Parliament reviewed the
decisions of the king's judges — the Chamberlain himself
sitting with the burgess representatives, and probably
guiding their proceedings after the practice still followed
by some law lord in the House of Lords.

The Court of the Four Burghs did not restrict its legis-
lative powers to municipal organisation — it established
rules of law on matters of private rights and obligations
— as, for instance, on the modes of succession to the pro-
perty of burgesses.^ On such matters they took earnest

^ It seems to have been held by the chief courts that the burghs
might have special laws of their own for private rights and obliga-
tions, and that the Court of the Four Burghs was the interpreter of
these laws. Thus Marjory Moygne, widow of a burgess of Berwick,
sues her husband's executor for 200 merks settled upon her by her
deceased husband before marriage. He died bankrupt, and she
maintains that, by burghal custom, her claim became a privileged

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, iooc-1290. 9I

• counsel with their brother corporations of England,
shelving, in an eminent degree, that spirit which has
made the great trading towns of Europe ever seek the
establishment of uniform laws as an efficacious facilitator
bf trade, by enabling every trader to know how he is
bound to act, and what form of bargain will hold good in
the various places in which he trades. Altogether the
laws of the Four Burghs are more complete and compact,
and have in them more of the qualities of a body of
statute law, than any other fragments of ancient legislation
in Scotland.

The power which this body must have had of old is
attested by its marvellous tenacity of life. By degrees it
absorbed all the royal burghs of Scotland ; but as it thus
widened, its separate influence dwindled, not so much
from this widening, as because the municipalities took
their place in the general parliament of the land. Under
the name of the " Convention of Royal Burghs " it con-
tinued to adjust questions about the internal constitution
of the separate corporations. This function was su^
perseded by the Burgh Reform Act of 1833; but the
Convention still duly meets every year in Edinburgh, and
has its formal parliamentary sittings, as if to keep the
institution alive and ready for action should its old powers
ever revisit it.^

debt, which must be paid before the estate is distributed by dividend

among the other creditors. The supreme judicatory for the time

refer the question to the Court of the Four Burghs, who report the

custom to be in favour of the widow : ** Requisiti fuerunt de con-

suetudine burgorum, si petitio dotis sit principale debitum, necne, et

si debeat solvi pne aliis debitis. Qui dixerunt quod lex et coii-

suetudo burgorum Scotia; talis est, quod petitio dotis est principale

debitum, et quod prae aliis debitis debet solvi." It is very unlikely

that this litigation would have come down to us if it had not become

memorable from one of the parties appealing against a judgment in

Scotland to King Edward I. of England, when he was asserting his

right of superiority over Scotland. The affair thus became a leading

case of signal importance, and was preserved in Ryley's Collection of

Pleadings in Parliament, p. 145. See also Stevenson, Documents

connected with the History of Scotland, i. 378.

, ^ Whoever desires to follow up more fully the history anJ hcvj of
the Convention will find the way prepared for him in the ' Records

93 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

The franchise for the election of magistrates was very
wide — so wide as to be rather indistinct, and afforci
ground for critical contention. On the first mute after
the feast of St Michael they were to be chosen in common
consultation ; they were to be chosen by the good men of
the town — those who were leal and of good repute.^ It
is not even provided that the electors must be burgesses
— and that rank was not difficult of attainment, as we
have seen in tliat law which conferred it on a fugitive serf
from any of the feudal lordships, who could hold on for a
year and day as an inhabitant of the burgh. There seems
to be no trace of thraldom or serfdom within the Scots
burghs.2 In this, though hardly in anything else, they
stand in contrast with the English corporations, in which
the existence of a servile class is marked by the emphatic
use of the word Freemen as applicable to the persons who
were not in slavery.

Through all this democratic spirit, however, there is a

of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, with Extracts
from other Records relating to the affairs of the Burghs of Scotland,*
4to, 1866. This is one of several valuable contributions to municipal
history in Scotland by James David Marwick, the Town-clerk of
the city of Edinburgh.

^ *' Communi consilio proborum hominum villse qui sint fideles et
house famae.'* In the vernacular version : "Thruch the consaile of
the gud men of the toune, the quhilk aw to be lele and of gud fame.**
— Leges Burg., Ixx.

^ There was one provision of a correctional character afTectii^
bondmen within burgh, which only tends to show that there they
were not in their natural place. The king's bondmen were excluded
from the privilege of freedom by burgess qualification, and conse-
quently it is one of the chamberlain's functions, in looking after the
interest of the crown, to see that none of the king's bondmen or
"natives'* are hiding in burghs — **de nativis domini regis latitan*
tibus in burgo." — De Articulis Inquirendis, St. i. 317. It docs not
appear whether the king came within a restraint s^inst the seizure
of bondmen during the peace of a fair, or during the holding of a
common fair in the town. In the vernacular version : *' Gif ony man
fyndis his bond in the fayre, the whilk is fra him fled, quhil the pece
of the fayre is lestand he may nocht of lach chase ne tak hym." —
Leges Burg., Ixxxviii. Another provision in the same code seems to
show that the rich burgesses kept hired domestics. The flesher or
batcher, while killing and sortmg meat in the house, is to eat at
board with the servants — " cum servientibus.** — Ibid., Ixiv.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1000-1290. 93

curious aim at severing the occupants of civic dignities
from all sordid contact Those honoured with the magis-
tracy must not bake bread nor brew ale for sale in their
own dwellings.^ The Merchant Guild was a separate
corporation within the burgh for purely trading purposes,
apart from mechanical pursuits ; and indeed this was the
class which in Scotland seems to have been specially
fenced off by exclusive corporate privileges. They had
to pay for these, in some measure, by supporting the dig-
nity of trading over mechanic pursuits, and three branches
of handworkers — ^lytsters or dyers, fleshers or butchers,
and shoemakers — ^were signalled as incapable of holding
the rank of Guild brethren, unless they should abandon
the piursuit of their craft with their own hands, and con-
duct it solely by employing hired operatives.^

The old trading communities were fortified by strong
exclusive privileges : these lived down even to the present
generation, and were extinguished with die unanimous
censure which attends upon the burial of intolerable
abuses. But a participator in this censure might, without
inconsistency, have a word of apology for the exclusive
privileges in the days when they were established. These
were days of strife and tyranny, when one order required
to protect itself by something like the organisation with
which others were prepared to attack it The exclusive
corporation was made so, to protect it from the host of
potent enemies that surrounded it ; and it was when per-
sonal greed and selfishness protracted the exclusive rules
into the time of law and order that their mischievous in-
justice was perceptible.

The vicissitudes of these old corporations have for us
tlie interest attending on everything that at some distant

^ Leges Burg., lix. — In the vernacular version : '*Nane aldirman,
1>ailzie, na bedell sail bake brede na brew ale to sell wythin thar a win
propir house durande the tym that thai stand in office.'*

• Leges Burg., Ixiv. — In the vernacular version : "Of thaim that

may nocht be in the gylde. It is to wyt that nothir lytstur nor flesch-

war nor soutar may be wythin the fredome of the gylde, bot gif he

sail forsuer to do that craft wyth his awne propir handis, bot wyth

, iervand]rs undir hym.'*

94 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

period has held a great place in the esteem of men. Of'
Roxburgh, one of the four pre-eminent cities, there stands
not one stone above another. Inverkeithing, where some-
times the burgher parliament and sometimes the king's
court was held, is a dirty village, curious in its squalid
memorials of old importance. Glasgow has long ceased
to bewail the oppressions which as a mere burgh of barony '
it suffered from its haughty neighbour Rutherglen, a royal •
burgh, with exclusive privileges of trade over the surround- •
ing district Most memorable of all has been the fate of
Berwick. From its wealth and magnificence this town '
was becoming the capital of Scotland, as London had be-
come that of England.^ Indeed, it stood in the estima-
tion of contemporaries as a rival to London and some of
the great Continental municipalities. The English Gov- '
ernment repeatedly tried to set up a castle on the south
side of the Tweed, to menace it and cripple its trade, but •
the project was ever defeated by the vigilance of the
burghers, backed by the Government of Scotland ; and •
the Bishop of Durham having once managed to get the
castle erected, it was pulled down again.^ The fate of
this great trading mart was that which ever must befall a ;
centre of civilised industry, when in the course of events
it becomes the centre of an exterminating war. Berwick
became the one trophy which England retained of the
great contest with Scotland, just as Calais was for long •
the one monument of the subjugation of France. Ber-
wick remained long on the statute-book a signal memorial
of tlie precision with which the marches between England

^ '* Ipsa ci vitas quondam adeo populosa ac negotiosa exstiterat»
quod merito altera Alexandria dici poterat, cujus divitise mare, et '
aquae muri ejus." — Chron. de Lanercost, 185. The chronicler, who
is a churchman, praises the liberality of the citizens in contributing tci
religious and charitable institutions ; but, as will occur, there are ex-
ceptions. There was a foundation to honour the festival of St Francia,
and the endowment of certain poor brethren, whom the corporation
were beginning to starve ; but they were checked by the apparition cif
its founder, John Gray, who was both a knight and a burgess. In
the Livere de Reis (319) it is said that, when the English took the
town, '* there great possessions were found, and much pyopcity.''

• Chron. de Lanercost, 7.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS, 1000-1290. 95

and Scotland had at last been drawn. The Acts of Par-
liament which were to be law for England could not be
law there also, unless they specially included " the town .
of Berwick-upon-Tweed,"

Such recollections give emphasis to what is perhaps, on
tile whole, the most interesting feature in the Scots muni-
cipalities — their close harmony with those of England.
Although, as we have seen, the Government of Scotland
would not permit a frontier fortress to be built on the
English side of the Tweed over against Berwick, yet there
was so little jealousy of general intercourse between the
two countries, that we fmd notice of a bridge across the
Tweed at Berwick so early as the year 1271.^ The har-
mony between the municipal institutions of the two coun-
tries is witnessed even in their nomenclature, the English
terns Mayor and Alderman being of common occunrence
IP Scotland until entirely superseded in after-times by the
terms savouring of France — the Provost, the Bailie, and
I ho I)ean or Doyen. The thoroughly Anglo-Saxon char-
sorter of these institutions must be visible in what has
neen already said of them. But there is more distinct
testimony to the harmonious action of the municipalities
of the two countries. We have see^ that the Scots cor-
porations took advice of those of England as to proper
corporate custom and law. As there is little doubt that
the impulse given to the corporation systems in both
countries was excited by the determination to combine

^ In that year Adam de Bedford was beheaded in England for hav-
ing associated with pirates (prsedones maris) in Scotland, at the north
end of the bridge of Berwick. The object of the procedure, whence
this isolated fact is learnt, appears to have been to establish by inquest
that he had property in England, so that he might be punished there
for offences committed in Scotland (Calendarium Genealogicum, 56
lien. III., p. 159). The Scala chronicle mentions, about ten years
later, the destruction of the bridge from the swelling of the river. It
is a coincidence that might have been thought ominous, that a chroni-
cler, in ihe page in which he commemorates King Edward's assump-
tion of the title of Lord Paramount and his right to dispose of the
crown, records the fall of this bridge. " Enviroun eel hour chey le
|K)unt de Berewick outre lew de Twede de grant cretyne de eaw, pour
ceo que lez archis estoient trop bassez." — Scalacronica, 118.

96 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

against Norman oppression, England, from far deeper
sources of experience, was able in such a matter to give
sound advice to Scotland. At all events, we have abund-
ant evidence of similarity, and even identity, in corporate
institutions. In the collection where all that is now avail-
able to us about these and other Scots institutions con-
temporary with them is stored up, there is a careful com-
parison of the vestiges of municipal organisation in Eng-
land and Scotland, showing identity both in substance and
language.^

It would be a great addition to what we know of the
growth of civilisation among us, could we realise the in-
ternal aspect of one of these burghs, with its streets and
shops and houses; but there are scarcely the faintest
means of doing so. Although there are other relics of far
earlier periods, there is no remnant of domestic architec-
ture in Scotland nearly so old as the great war. Any
buildings that tradition may happen to carry back to such
a period are certainly of far more recent date — at the ear-
liest, generally of the sixteenth century. But the fact is,
that unless in those towns of Italy or central Europe
where the Roman plan of building houses with stone con-
tinued down through the changes in architecture of the
Gothic periods, there are hardly anywhere traces of purely
domestic buildings of so early an age. Where very an-
cient types of structure exist in the streets of towns, they
are generally found to have belonged to ecclesiastical
edifices.

* As containing the authority for all that is here said about the
Scots municipalities, reference is made to the collection of old laws in
the first volume of the Record edition of the Scots Acts, and to the
commentaries by which they are accompanied. The identification of
the substance of burghal institutions in the two countries will be found
in the notes to the preface (p. 33), accompanied with the remark that
** it is hardly necessary to observe that no feeling of hostility yet inter-
fered between the two countries to prevent the inhabitants of Lowland
Scotland and of England, kindred in blood, language, and manners,
from adopting together the steps of a system which opposed, to the
oppressive power of the Norman nobles, the union of numbers in each
town, and the combination and mutual support of the trading com-
munities of the whole island.''

TOWNS AND HOUSES, IOOO-1290. 97

We must suppose the houses of the old citizens of Scot-
lanci to have been built of wood, like those of I^iiglarid
and of northern Europe generally. Wt have seen that it
was an ancient practice of the Columbites to build their
houses, and even their churclies, with wattles, after the
manner of basket-work, and the practice continued down
to the eighteenth century in the Highlands. It was natu-
ral to the places where oak coppice grew ; and the house
so built was not so unsubstantial and comfortless as the
dwellers in stone or brick houses might suppose. The
walls were of a stout double framework, with turf or earth
piled in between, so as to make them as thick as might be
desirable.^ We know that the houses in the towns were
extremely combustible; and the old burghal code con-
tains anxiously-prepared regulations touching the spread-
ing of conflagrations.^ Whole towns were often burnt
down. As some particular season becomes memorable
for its unprecedented multitude of shipwrecks, although
such disasters are of common occurrence, so the year 1244
became memorable in Scotland for the multitude of its
city conflagrations ; and if we believe the chroniclers, the
towns of Haddington, Roxburgh, Lanark, Stirling, Perth,
Forfar, Montrose, and Aberdeen, were burned to ashes. ^

It is the less likely that domestic houses were built of

* In the year 1233, when the Abbey of Paisley had an inquisition
to revindicate certain lands on the Clyde which they said had been
impropriated from the church of Kilpatrick, Alexander the son of
Hugo attests how, more than sixty years previously, he had, when a
boy, going with his father on a visit, seen a certain Bede Ferdan liv-
ing in a large house built of wattles beside that church — *' habitant em
in quadam domo magna fabricata devirgis." — Feuda Vetusta, 85;
Act. Pari., V. I.

* One of these curiously exemplifies the neighbourly and kindly
spirit often enlightening these ancient laws. He from whose house
the conflagration may have spread is not to be too heavily responsible,
for the poor man has his own griefs. In the vernacular version :
♦•Gif tliat fyr passes out of ony mannis hous, quharthruch hapnis
mony housis to be brynt to the nichtburis, na greyff nor na dystro-
blans sal be done til him mar than he has, for sorow and hevines has
he ineuch foroutyn mar." — Leges Burg., 1.

* " Usque ad cineres."— Scotichron., ix. 61. He calls them "fere
omnes burgi Scoti% "

VOL. II. G

98 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

stone, as it is probable that down to the opening of the
War of Independence there were very few castles built of
stone in Scotland — that is to say, strong towers which
were alike fortresses and dwelling-houses according to the
Norman and the Gothic fashion. It has already been
observed for its political significance, that there are no
remains of Norman castles in Scotland.*

This type of architecture is endowed with extrdmely dis-
tinctive features, which at once tell their own history.
They are the continuation — the degradation, some might
say — of the Roman type ; and no one can tell exactly
where the one ends and the other begins, or where the
boundary-line lies between the classical and the Gothic.
It has been said that the term Norman is not a proper
name for this form of architecture, since it was adopted,
with more or less variety, by all the communities which.

^ The way to make sure of accuracy in such comprehensive asser-
tions is to strive to find out the exceptions. In this the Author has
done his best, and has recommended others to do the like. He wais
much struck by the Normanish tone of a gateway drawn as an illus-
tration of a privately-printed book called ' Memorials of the Mont-
gomeries.' It is in the small town of Irvine, in Ayrshire, and belongs
to a ruined building once the residence of the Montgomery family. A
visit to the spot rather confirmed the notion that some of the features
of tJie building were of the later Norman. There is a round arch,
with thinnish rounded mouldings, and small round pillars with
squared or bevelled bases and capitals, with the tooth or star decora-
tion in the hollows of the mouldings. The doorway has more of an
ecclesiastical than a baronial look, although the building it belongs to
is baronial. The features are certainly those common to the latter
period of the rounded and the beginning of the pointed architecture.
At the same time the rest of the building is of later date, and it would
require the eye of one who is not only an archaeologist but a practical
architect to determine that the gateway really is of the age it pro-
fesses to belong to, and has not some little feature betraying more
recent workmanship— a means of 'detection which the imitator rarely
escapes.

In Grose's Antiquities of Scotland there is a drawing of a docn^'ay
of Closebum Castle, in Dumfriesshire, thoroughly Norman. On a
pilgrimage to the spot, however, no such doorwav and no vestige of
Norman work could be found. The castle is just the featureless
Scots peel tower of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Such has
been the result of a search after Norman woik in the baronial archi-
tecture of Scotland.

FORTRESSES, 1000-1290. QQ

followed the fashions of the Romans ; but it became espe-
cially the function of the Normans, as the active propa-
gators of civilisation, to spread the method of building
which they had seen in their conquests in Italy and France.
The baronial form of it, at all events, was directiy theirs.
Wherever they went, they built castles, and as the style of
building them changed with time until it worked itself into
pointed Gothic, we know by the castles of a country at
what time the Normans rooted themselves in it. In
England it was the time of the great square towers, with
round arches and no outworks ; in Scotland, as well as in
Wales and Ireland, it was the later time of the pointed
arch, with central towers and circular flanking outworks.

Of this class we have fine specimens in Scotland — Both-
well, Caerlaverock, Kildrummy, Dirleton, and several
others. The oldest of them is perhaps Hermitage, which
has scarcely any flanking works — nothing but abutments
at the corners, like the Norman lowers, but in this instance
they meet in a wide Gothic arch overhead. The erection
of this castle was a political event importing that such
buildings were rare. It has been told that in the year
1 244 King Henry of England marched a great army north-
wards to attack Scotland, and among the grievances he
had was the erection of this castle in Liddesdale so near
the English frontier — it was denounced as a threat on the
border, just as Scotland denounced the castle on the
English side of Tweedmouth.^

1 •* Quod quoddam castellum erectum fuit per Scotos in marchiis
inter Scotiam in valle scilicet de Liddale quod appellatur Hermitage."
— Scotichron., ix. 61. Even though this story of the English taking
umbrage be not correct, the passage shows how important this castle
vras considered. I believe it to be about the oldest baronial building
in Scotland. It is strange that a building with such a memorable after-
history — the abode of the wizard Soulis, the prison where Sir Alex-
ander Ramsay was starved to death by the Knight of Liddesdale, the
place to which Queen Mary made her frantic journey to see the
wounded Bothwell — should have escaped the pencil of the illustrators
of Scots architecture and scenery. There are, to be sure, represen-
tations'of it, but I never saw one which gave a notion of its very pc«
culiar architectural character.

There is something suggestive in finding that this, seemingly the

lOO PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

These fine Gothic buildings, probably the greater part
of them built by the English invaders, are thus our oldest
baronial remains. 'I'he rude square towers so abundantly
scattered over Scotland, though invested by local tradition
with indefinite antiquity, belong to the period after the
war, and are generally no older than the fifteenth century.^
What, then, are we to make of the numerous historical
events in which castles figure back to the earliest times —
castles still existing, as Edinburgh, Stirling, Dumbarton,
and many others ? Places of defence they were, no doubt,
but it does not follow that they were castles such as arose

earliest strength built in Scotland according to the new method, be-
longed to the most powerful of ail the Norman settlers, the Comyns.
It is very likely that there were then no such buildings in the royal
fortresses. Had they existed in Edinbuigh, Dumbarton, or Stirling,
for instance, it is very unlikely that they would be utterly obliterated,
for architecture of this kind survives an enormous deal of pommelling,
liard usage, and even improvement. The White Tower of London
betrays its Norman features vividly, for all the pains taken to oblit-
erate them. On the rock of Edinburgh Castle there is one relic
of old architecture, older still than Hermitage ; it is a Norman
church.

^ When a building has any ostensible claim to antiquity as an ob-
solete type of castle or church, there is a popular notion that rudeness
and decay are marks of age. No buildings last long but those that
are firmly built, and our having in existence buildings of any as-
signed past age, depends on whether there was then a zeal and apti-
tude for thorough good mason-work. Hence very ancient buildings
often seem more modem than others built centuries afterwards.
Paestum would seem fresh and new beside many of our buildings of
the Restoration time of Doric architecture. It happened that the
masons in Norman, and after them those in early pointed architecture,
did their work thoroughly, laying it in courses of square close-cut
blocks. Hence it will happen that the keep of a Norman castle
seems to be more modem than the rude, decaying buildings of later
time which cluster round it.

In the outlying districts of Scotland — those which were hardly under
the crown till a later period — there are some rather puzzling castles,
such as Castle Swein, opposite to Jura, and Dunstaffnage. These
have little of the decoration that enables us to assign a building to its
proper period of the Gothic series, and they have not the finish of the
good specimens of the Norman and earlier pointed work ; yet they
are evidently early in the series, probably little if at all more recent
than Hermitage. One might imagine them as built by the Norwegian
potentates of the West in imitation of the models furnished by the
English Normans.

FORTRESSES, 1000-1290. lOI

in England in the reign of Stephen, and in Scotland in
later times. In the old Scots strength it seems likely
that the fort and the dwelling-house were not mixed up —
that there was a fortified rampart, with unfortified dwelling
places inside ; and if it was so, it can only be said that
the Vauban system of fortification has brought us back to
the same idea. It is not to be supposed that the great cir-
cular ramparts of stone known as hill-forts were in use in the
historical period.^ Their names do not answer to those of
the castles historically spoken of, and they were far too large
to have been permanently occupied as fortresses ; some of
them could only have been manned to any effect by large
armies. We find traces of narrower defences, and these
are not always on the ground that is naturally rough and
precipitous. Abrupt trap-rocks shooting out of the plain,
as in Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton, formed natural
sites for fortresses that could not be overlooked. Other-
wise, however, the engineers of these early works seem to
have disliked rocky ground, and to have aflfected earthen
mounds, some artificially made, others scarped out of dilu-
vial banks. The reason for such a selection seems to have
been the opportunity which an earthen mound gave for
staking. There are several of these mounds in Scotland,
circular or oval, rising very abruptly from the plain, with
a flat table of turf above. The ruins of Roxburgh Castle
stand on one of these ; there is another at Lochmaben,
on which stood, doubtless, a castle earlier than the pre-
sent Ruthven Barrack stands on a good specimen of
the same kind of work ; and there is another very remark-
able, called the Peel Bog, at Lumphanan, where Macbeth
was slain.

It will be seen that these generally have a strategic
command of a country. The abrupt diluvial slope on the
edge of a stream often afforded this by its geological posi-
tion, and saved the trouble of raising artificial earthworks.
At Forteviot, reputed to have been the capital of the Pict-
ish kings, the little river May, after tumbling down the
sides of the Ochils, makes a sweep round abrupt banks of

^ See an account of these above, chap. iii.

102 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

ihis kind. Standing on their ridge, one can see how a
lortress there commanded the passage of the mountain
districts, both of the Grampians and the Ochils, through
the great valley called Stralheam, still the main highway
between north and south in Scotland. As to the dwellings
within the ramparts of these fortresses, it is only to be
supposed that they must have been built of the materials
most readily at hand. That they were generally built of
wood is inferred from the numerous burnings of these
forts. Destruction of strongholds by fire is of continual
occurrence, from the dawn of history to the destruction of
the Lord of A thole by the adherents of the Byssets in
Haddington, and the burning out of the English garrison
at l^nark by Wallace.

Whether or not this be a correct idea of the system of
fortification in Scotland before the great ^var, it is at all
events certain that, of castles of the Norman type, preva-
lent from the time of the Conquest to well on in the thir-
teenth century, Scotland can produce nothing to show
that the country was under the influences which produced
the grand specimens yet existing in England. The polit-
ical significance of this is the more remarkable, as eccle-
siastical buildings in that style in Scotland are abundant
and magnificent. These are the mark, indeed, of the
united inroad of Norman manners and Catholic unity
according to the Roman model.

A w^ord may be said about some relics of another reli-
gious school, the existence of which only tends to make
more emphatic the impulse given at one and the same
time to the architecture which came from Rome, and to
the ecclesiastical system which radiated thence. Most
]ieople have heard of those mysterious edifices, the Irish
round towers. AVe have two specimens of the same
structure in Scotland ; there are none in England or on
the Continent Buildings so exclusively peculiar could
not but excite curiosity and wonder ; and the more so
that, while they stand beside churches, or are, indeed,
actually part of them, yet it is clear that they were built
at a different time, and never formed any feature of the
design on which the church might be built Many briJ-

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE, 1000-1290. I03

liant theories about temples of Phalic or Buddhist worship,
ind astronomical observatories for contemplative Druids,
were dispersed by a minute comparative analysis of the
features of the several round towers, and an examination
of any scrap of history relating to them.^ The results were
clear, and adjusted themselves easily to historical condi-
tions. Though different in their general form and struc-
ture from other early Christian buildings, yet many of the
round towers had mason-work of the unmistakable Nor-
man type; others were raised by builders who apparently
were not acquainted with the structure of the arch, and
who had neither this evidence of scientific advancement
in architecture, nor any of the minor adaptations of the
Norman school. A knowledge, then, of what was doing
elsewhere, seems to have come in upon the native builders
while they were at this kind of work, and so the later of tlie
round towers are identified with the Norman period of
architecture.

They were eccentric, however, in this, that while the
Irish ecclesiastics seemed to have built nothing else of
stone, or nothing of a lasting kind, they had raised these
prodigious towers. Yet if we suppose their means to
have been limited, this devotion of them would, keeping
purely ecclesiastical purposes in view, be a good invest-
ment. The great difficulty they had to deal with was the
sudden invasions of the Norsemen, who carried off what
was ready to their hand, and burned what was destruc-
tible. One cannot suppose better fortresses of defence
against enemies like these than the round towers. They
had no stairs, and could only be scaled by ladders. No-
where could the treasures of the Church — the books, the
relics, and the objects of more material value — be so safe

^ A good example of how the same thing may be done in two
totally diffe/ent ways is found in comparing Mr Petrie's solid and
cautious investigations with the smaller but prodigiously more ambi-
tious book of his rival, Henry O'Brien, * The Round Towers of Ire-
land ; or, the Mysteries of Freemasonry, of Sabaism, and of Bud-
dhism for the first Time Unveiled.' This is about the wildest and
grotesquest flight that archseological speculation has ever taken, and
that is saying a good deaL

104 PROGRESS OF THE NATION. ,

as high up in one of these stone tubes, whether attended
by a guard or not. It was impossible to attack them
without a scaffolding of equal height; for to attempt to
topple them down by attacks from below, before the
days of artillery, would have been destruction to the be-
siegers.

It was natural that, as the practice of their parent Irish
Church, the raising of such buildings should find its way
across to the ecclesiastics of Scotland, who came to be
called Culdees. We have hence two modest specimens
of them where there were eminent Culdee houses — ^Aber-
nethy, on the south bank of the Tay, and Brechin. The
tower of St Regulus in St Andrews, though square, belongs
to the same architectural type.

These, then, as relics of the ways of the old Culdees,
stand surrounded by the thoroughly Norman buildings of
the age of Margaret and David. These are so conspicu-
ous that every one having the least interest in such
matters knows them. There are Dunfermline, Arbroath,
Jedburgh, Kelso, and Coldingham — great studies for the
historical architect. And now that such inquiries have
come to be among the hobbies or pursuits of the traveller
or tourist, small specimens, sometimes curious and beauti-
ful, have been discovered in unexpected places, to bless
the eyes that have first looked upon them with critical
discernment.^

As we have seen in some other matters, so in this of
the fashion of church architecture, the traveller crossing
the border from England would not have felt that he had
changed countries. The leading characteristics are the
same in both countries. The Abbey Church of Dunferm-
line has features so identical with those of Durham
Cathedral as to suggest that they must have been the
work of the same builder. The oldest specimens of

* About the fullest recent revelation of obscure specimens will be
found in the two books of Mr Muir, * Descriptive Notices of some of
the Ancient Parochial and Collegiate Churches of Scotland,* 1S48 ;
and ' Characteristics of Old Church Architecture in the Mainland and
Western Islands of Scotland,' i86i.

AFFLUENCE OF THE COUNTRY, 1000-1290. 105

pointed architecture in Scotland are rigidly in the style
specially called Early English.

These noble buildings could not have been raised in a
country where there did not exist riches.^ It will not
harmonise with the proverbial way of dealing with the
subsequent condition of the country to say it, but yet I
cannot but believe that, before the War of Independence,
Scotland was a wealthy country for that day. We cannot
strike the balance of the wealth of existing communities,
even with the powerful statistical machinery now at our
command. We know that they- are rich or poor from the
observation of many little incidents, perhaps of small
moment in themselves. We get at the result by familiar-
ity with these ; and it is by such an amount of familiarity
as their history records, and monuments afford us, that
we can judge of the affluence of the people of past gener-
ations. There are many incidental matters that speak of
comfort and wealth thus revealed to us in old Scots life.
If we grant that the privileges and restrictions infesting
trade were beyond what was needed even for such an
age, yet they show us that there were riches going about,
and that some persons wanted to have more than their
due share in them. The assize of bread distinguishes
wheat, ** white and well bolted," from other kinds with
lower privileges ; and the burghal code lets us into the

* "The beautiful and somewhat singular architecture of the ruined
church of Kelso Abbey still gives proof of taste and skill and some
science in the builders, at a period which the confidence of modem
times has proclaimed dark and degraded ; and if we could call up to
the fancy the magnificent abbey and its interior decorations, to corre-
spond with what remains of that ruined pile, we should find works of
art that might well exercise the talents of high masters. Kelso bears
marks of having been a full centunr in building ; and during all that
time at least, perhaps for long afterwards, the carver of wood, the
sculptor in stone and marble, the tile-maker and the lead and iron
wortcer, the painter, whether of Scripture stories or of heraldic blazon-
ings, the designer, and the worker in stained glass for those gorgeous
windows which we now vainly try to imitate — must each have been
put in requisition, and each, in the exercise of his art, contributed to
raise the taste and cultivate the minds of the inmates of the cloister.
Of many of these works the monks themselves were the artists and
titisana." — Innes*s Sketches, 197.

I06 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

secret that there was white bread and bro\vn or grcy.^ In
the regulations for killing and curing meat it would be
difficult to find any principle of philosophical legislation ;
but they reveal to us abundant food and lordly tables.
The fleshers, or butchers, are to keep good flesh — ^beef,
mutton, and pork — after the ordinance of the good men
of the town, and to expose it openly in their windows,
that it be seen of all men. They are to serve the bur
gesses in killing time — that is, from Martinmas to Christ-
mas ; and while so at work, are to board with the
burgesses* servants. They are liable to penalties if they
mismanage the meat.' A butcher was not permitted to
be a pastr}xook.* Among matters for inquiry and regu-
lation by the Lord Chamberlain, was whether cooks
prepared their food in a fit state for human use.* Such
legislation is unknoAMi at the present day, not by any
means because the object has been attained, but because
it is hopeless thus to attempt to effect it.

Scotland had the benefit of a complicated tariff, and
we must count such an apparatus as a symptom of wealth
and civilisation, even though a still higher' civilisation
denounces it There is a good deal of trade in skins and
peltry ; and although this market might be in a great
measure supplied from native produce, yet even under
this head are names that speak of imported luxuries, as
marten, beaver, and sable skins. There seems to have
been an internal trade in fish caught chiefly off the
northern coasts. We may infer that this commodity
reached England, on finding that, in a purvey of provi-
sions sumptuously ordered at the cost of King Edward of
England for the entertainment of Queen Margaret and
her court on their voyage from Nor^vay, one item is a hun

^ **Baxturis as bakis Vrede to sell sail bake quhyte brede and gray
eftir the consideracion and pryse of the gude men of the toune. . . .
And quha that l>akis brede to sell aw nocht for to hyde it, bot sett it
'.n thair wyndow or in the mercat that it may be opynly sauld."—
Leg. Burg., Ix.

^Ibid., Ixiv.

' •* Pastillarius.'*— Fragmenta, St. i. 365.

* De Articulis Inquirendis, Su i. 3x7.

AFFLUE^'CE OF THE COUNTRY, 1000-1290. 10/

dred fishes from Aberdeen. That they should have been
supplied from Scotland to the place they were sent to seems
the more strange that the beer for the occasion was bought
in Norway.^ There are duties on pepper, cumin, ginger,
almonds, rice, figs, and raisins. The consumption of wine
is a matter not so much of tariff as of internal regulation.
Hostels or taverns turn up in the charters as a known estab-
lished institution of the country. For some reason deemed
sufficient, in a charter of William the Lion, it is forbidden
that in the county of Perth there shall be a tavern in any
town unless where there is a resident lord of the degree of
knight, and even then one tavern must suffice.^ A similar
regulation applicable to the county of Aberdeen is found
in the reign of Alexander 11.^

What we can catcli about the details of trade and agri-
culture is only in casual fragments. These are chiefly
found in the chartularies of the religious houses ; and al-
though they were in close connection with places of trade,
having under them some burghs with their harbours, and
possessing property in others, yet naturally their title-deeds
show more of the farming on their estates than the com-
merce of the towns. Whether or not their agriculture was
of a scientific kind, it is certain that it was systematic and
under regulation and supervision. It is possible to define
the extent of the cottars' holdings, the produce and its
nature, the rent or consideration given, and the arrange-
ments for ploughing the fields.* Wheat was grown in the

* Stevenson, Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland,
i. 139. Under different circumstances we find King Edward's ser-
vants buying five hundred hard fishes of Aberdeen. — Ibid., 326.

* Vestigia, St. i. 76. The charter is in favour of the burgh ot
Perth, which is not included in the restraint, and it is supposed that
the object was to give the burgh some monopoly in the tavern trade.

» Ibid., 77.

* ** There is preserved a curious Rental of the great Abbacy of
Kelso of the end of the thirteenth century, which gives us some in-
sight into the niral affairs of the monks. At that time, and probably
always, they held a great part of their ample lands and baronies in
their own hands, and cultivated them by their villeins from their
leveral Granges.

*• The Grange itself, the chief house of each of the abbey baronies,

I08 PROGRESS OF THE NATION.

fertile plains of Morayshire ; and it is noticed that there
are rules for the protection of growing com and hay
meadows.

It is noted as a type of civilisation, that in the chamber-
must have been a spacious farm-steading. In it were gathered the
cattle, implements, and stores needed for the cultivation of their
demesne lands or mains ; their com and produce, the serfs or carls who
cultivated it, and their women and families. A monk or lay brother
of the abbey superintended the whole.

" Adjoining the Grange was a mill, ^vith all its pertinents and
appearance and reality of comfort, and a hamlet occupied by the
cottars, sometimes from thirty to forty families in number. The
situation of these was far above the class now knoi^-n by that name.
Under the monks of Kelso, each cottar occupied from one to nine
acres of land, along with his cottage. The rents varied from one to
six shillings yearly, with services not exceeding nine days' labour.
The tenants of twenty-one cottages at Clarilaw, having each three
acres of land, minus a rood, and pasture for two cows, paid each two
bolls of meal yearly, and were Iwund to shear the whole com of the
abbey Grange at Newton.

'* Beyond the hamlet or cottar town were scattered in small groups
the farm -steadings of the husbandi or husbandmen, the next dass of
the rural population. Each of these held of the abbey a definite
quantity oi land, called a husbandland. Each tenant of a husband-
land kept two oxen ; and six united their oxen to work the common
plough. The Scotch plough of the thirteenth century was a ponder-
ous machine, drawn, when the team was complete, by twelve oxen.
The husbandland was estimated long ago in the Merse as twenty-six
acres, * where scythe and plough may gang.* The husbandmen were
bound to keep good neighbourhood, the first point of which consist etl
in contributing sufficient oxen and service to the common plough.

" As a fair specimen of the rents at which these tenants sat, wc may
take the barony of Bowden, which, I believe, is now the property of
the Duke of Roxburghe.

'*The monks had twenty-eight husbandlands there, each of which
paid 6s. 8d. of money rent ; but to this were added considerable
services in harvest and sheep-shearing, in carrving peats and carting
wool, and fetching the abbot's commodities from Berwick. These
stipulations are exceedingly precise, fixing even the service, in which >
the husbandman was to have his food from the abbey, and where he
was to maintain himself.

'* In the whole catalogue, no service is imposed on women except
harvest-work ; and I believe agriculturists will agree that we have a
still more decided proof of advancing civilisation in the fact, that at
the period of the rental the whole J<rz/tr«r were in the process of being
commuted for money.

*' Above the class of husbandmen was that of the yeoman, or bonnet*

AFFLUENCE OF THE COUNTRY, 1000-1290. I09

hia's books there is a charge for a gardener at the king's
castle at Forfar;^ and in a document of the year 1261 one
pleads a right to a garden in Morayshire, whence pot-
herbs were in use to be supplied for the king's table when
he dwelt in the castle of Elgin.^ Forty-two years later,
when King Edward is in possession of Scotland, the Dean
of Elgin beseeches him for a grant of oak-wood from a
neighbouring forest, that he might rebuild certain house.s,
and the enclosure oif his garden, destroyed by the conquer-
ing army.* Early in the War of Independence there is a
claim for damage by the English army on the estates of the
nunnery of Coldstream, and of this one item is for the
Pomer or orcliard, which yielded the value of a hundred
shillings annually beyond the fruit consumed by the
house.*
Roads of various kinds are referred to, and the vehicles

lainl, as he is now called in primitive parts of Scotland. Such an one
was that Hosbemus, whom Abbot Jonn of Kelso styles 'homo noster*
— 'our man ' — and who got a half plough of land in heritage and per-
petuity in Middleham, and became the liege vassal of the abbe^,
paying a reddendo of eight shillings, and giving certain services m
ploughing-time and harvest. He no doubt paid for his hereditary
right to the lands, and felt himself much above the husbandmen,
whose title was precarious. . . .

'*The monasteries of Teviotdale had necessarily a great extent of
pasture-land ; and the minute and careful arrangement of folds on
their mountain pastures for sheep and byres for cattle, and of the
loOges or temporary dwellings for their keepers and attendants, shows
that they paid the greatest attention to this part of their extensive
farming. But the immense number and variety of agricultural tran-
sactions, the frequent transference of lands, the dispur.-s and settle-
ments regarding marches, the precision and evident care of leases, the
very occurrence, so freqnently, of the names of field divisions, and of
the boundaries between farms, settled by Kifg Javid in person, show
an enlightened attention and interest in agricultural affairs, that seem
to have spread from the monastery and reached the whole population
during that period of national peace and good government, which was
so rudely terminated by the War of the Succession." — Innes's Scot-
land in the Middle Ages, 138-140, 147.

^ Innes's Scotland in the Middle Ages, 124.

* Vestigia, St. i. 89, 90.

^ Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland, by Joseph
Stevenson, ii. 451.

* Ibid., 31.

112

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

)4ARKATIVE KESUMED— DOUBTS ABOUT THE DEATH OP QUERN UAJt-
GARET — A PRETENDER IS NORWAY BURNED AT THE STAKE —
KING EDWARD AND HIS POSITION— COMMUNICATIONS OPENED WITH
HIM — THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE ASSEMBLAGE AT NORIIAM —
THE ASSEMBLAGE AND ITS ELEMENTS—- THE NOTARY PUBLIC— KINQ
EDWARD'S ADDRESS — THE ASSERTION OF SUPERIORITY — THE AI>-
JOURNMENT — NOTICE TO THE CLERfJY, NOBILITY, AND COMMUNITY
TO PUT IN ANY OBJECTIONS THEY HAVE— HOW THE NOBILITY AND
CLERGY HAD NOTHING TO SAY, AND THE COMMUNITY WERE NOT
LISTENED TO — THE ROLL OP COMPETITORS — EXCEPTIONAL CLAIM
OP FLORENCE, COUNT OP HOLLAND — ALL COMERS HEARD — THB
NARROWING OF THE LEET — THE COMPETITORS FINALLY LIMITED
TO BRUCE. BALIOL, AND COMYN — ^THEIR GENEALOGIES AND CLAIMS
AS DESCENDANTS OP THE EARL OP HUNTINGDON— THE MEETINGS
AND DISCUSSIONS — THE METHOD OP PACKING A JURY FOR THB
DECISION — ADJOURNMENT — DOINGS APART — EXAMINATION AND
REMOVAL OF RECORDS— RETURN OF PRECEDENTS ORDERED.

Let us now return to the narrative at the point where we
left it — the death of the young Queen of Scots on her
way from Norway. The announcement of so portentous
an event, through indistinct rumours, naturally caused men
to talk and doubt. There was none of the solemn detail
that might be expected to attend on a royal death, even
though less heavily laden with a perplexing future. We
are not told of any who were present — of the disease or
its progress — of the spot where she died or the place
where she was buried. The time of tlie death is only in-
ferred to have been in September, because the first nimour
of it is uttered in the famous letter of Bishop Fraser, pre-
sently to be noted, the date of that letter being the 7th of

DOUBTS ABOUT MARGARET'S DEATH. 11 J

October. To account for this mysterious silence in Scot-
land, it may be sufficient to remember that Orkney was
then a distant province of a foreign country, and was
unlikely to have direct communication with Edinburgh.
On the other hand, the annals of Norway are at this
period shadowy and imperfect The project of the mar^
riage has no place in them — they do not record her set-
ting out on her voyage, or the names of her attendants,
and they are equally silent as to her death. What the
Scandinavian historians of later times can gather about
the whole tragedy is from the abundant diplomatic re-
cords preserved in England ; and when in these are seen
the names of certain persons commissioned by King
Eric to adjust the affair of the marriage, the Scandinavian
historians have to content themselves with the supposi-
tion that some of these may have been the companions
of her journey..

But ten years afterwards, Norway was strangely aroused
to inquiry about the unremembered event. A woman
came from Leipzic who proclaimed herself to be 'the
daughter of King Eric and the lost Queen of Scotland.
She said she had been followed to Orkney, and kid-
napped and sold ; and she gave circumstantiality to her
tale by naming as the perpetrator a woman of high rank —
Ingebjcerg, the wife of Thore Haakonsson. Like Simnel,
Warbec, and other more recent claimants, she secured an
audience and a following. King Haco, who had suc-
ceeded his brother Eric, took up her pretensions as a
serious affair of state. She was tried as an impostor, and
sentenced to death by burning. The sentence was exe-
cuted at Bergen, and it is told that on her way to the
stake she held to her story, and said she then remembered
how, when a child, she had been at that very port with
her father. King Eric, when she sailed for Scotland. The
end seems to have excited popular belief in her story,
and it comes down with traditions of a cruel martyrdom,
commemorated in the dedication of an expiatory chapeU
The whole affair has left on Scandinavian history a
shadow of doubt, in the possibility that the child might
have been spirited away by some one of those so deeply

VOL. IL K

114 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

interested in her disappearance ; and consequently, that it
may be an open question whether the royal line of the
Alexanders really came to an end until the consummation
of this tragedy in the year 1301.^

It is in vain now to speculate on the future that would
have been for Scotland had Edward II., King of England,
and Margaret, Queen of Scotland, reigned together as
man and wife, and left offspring. The position of King
Edward was changed with everything else. The destinies
of Scotland were no longer a matter for his paternal
anxiety. ' In whatever he had done regarding Scotland,
suspicious though the Scots might be, he had the legiti-
mate purpose that he was guarding the interests of his
niece. Even while there was no stronger tie, he was her
nearest relation on this side of the North Sea, and bound
to protect her interest from a formidable body who set
covetous eyes on her inheritance. He acted the part of
the kind parent, down to a care for the comforts of her
voyage. Besides sending commissioners or ambassadors
to represent him in the conduct of the preliminary arrange-
ments, he freighted a vessel from Yarmouth with a cargo
diat must have afforded means of sumptuous living to the
young queen and her followers. The same dry memo-
rials — accounts rendered for moneys paid for the King
of England — show that he had costly gifts of robes and
jewellery set apart to grace the reception of his son's
bride.2

^ Det Norske Folks Ilistorie fremstillet af P. A. Munch, vol. iv.
pt. ii. 192-198, 344-348; and see Torfaeus, Hist. Nor., iv. 464;
Annales Islandici, 179. All that can be found about this strange
story tends more to the excitement than the satisfaction of curiosity,
and it presents an interesting point for archaeological inquiry from this
side. In the accounts from the Scandinavian side there are entangle-
ments in the shadowy references to another Scots alliance by Eric. In
1293 he married Isabella Bruce, a daughter of the competitor with
Baliol. They had a daughter named Ingeborg. — Torfaei, Hist. Norw.,
iv. 385 ; Munch, vol. iv. pt. ii. 280.

* Stevenson's Documents, i. 139-142, 186. It would seem, from
expressions in these accounts, as if King Eric had been expected to ac-
company his daughter. It would also appear that the vessel coiUai&>
ing the stores was to bring them over.

PRELIMINARIES, 1290-91. IIS

' When these and suchlike matters of trifling concern
were overshadowed by the gloomy end, what became evi-
dent as the predominant tendency of events was, that
they had concurred with wonderful precision to throw the
fate of Scotland into the hands of the King of England,
and all men who knew anything about him knew that he
was not a man to let slip his opportunities. At so strange
and exciting a juncture in history, the chroniclers are
naturally garrulous about such matters as the apprehen-
sions of the people of Scotiand and the temper and de-
meanour of King Edward. Such notices are unsatisfac-
tory at all times ; and where we have a deal of matter of
the most instructive and emphatic kind preserved in the
Norman records of the period, there is not even the ordi-
nary temptation to repeat them. In fact, we know at this
day much more about the things done, and even the
motives of those concerned in them, than any of these
chroniclers did, if we may except those who were ad-
mitted to a knowledge of certain secrets in order that they
might do services by forgery or falsification — and there is
not much to be relied on in the writings of this class. It
is proposed, therefore, in the following statement of the
events which placed a king on the throne of Scotland, to
rely entirely on the testimony of authentic documents
standing on record.

Before going into these events, however, it is proper to
note in passing a domestic calamity befalling the chief
actor ; it is of moment, for it appears to have postponed
the opening of the drama. Just about the time when the
news of the death of the infant Queen of Scotland arrived,
Edward was at the deathbed and the funeral of his wife.
Queen Eleanor. He left to the world more than one noble
memorial of his sorrow for her loss, and there is little
doubt that they represented real grief. She was the partner
of his perilous life in the Eastern wars, as well as of his
pomp and power at home. It is seldom that from the
records of royal unions we can carry away the impression
of deep-rooted attachment, but it seems to have been sc
with King Edward and Queen Eleanor. There was a con-
geniality in the high spirit with which both were endowed ;

Il6 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

and tlie qualities that made the great commander, the
subtle politician, the unscrupulous usurper of national
rights, the cruel tyrant in conflict with his fellow-men, —
are not by any means inconsistent with domestic affections
deep and tender.

To return to the revelations of the records. The hrst
document of the series has given opportunity for much
criticism, and invites more. It is a letter from William
Fraser, Bishop of St Andrews, one of the Guardians, ad-
dressed to King Edward. It tells him of the rumour of
the death of the young Queen Margaret — a rumour not
yet confirmed, and which the writer fervently hopes to find
ultimately contradicted. The rumour came, it seems, while
the Estates were sitting to receive the answer of the king
to the refusal to give up the fortresses to him. The bishop
tells, as a significant occurrence, that Bruce had not in-
tended to be present at that meeting, but did come, and
with a large force, on hearing of the rumour. What his
ultimate intentions might be the bishop professes not to
know ; but if it be that the queen is known to be really
dead, he beseeches King Edward to approach the border,
so that he may give comfort to the people of the country,
obviate bloodshed, and help the faithful of the land to
raise to the throne the man who has the proper title. It
is shown that this must be Baliol; and there are some
doubtful expressions, which some have interpreted to mean
that even he should only be promoted if he shall conform
to Edward's policy.^

It is very likely that the writer of this letter wished to
make favour with the great king ; but it is rather stretch-
ing interpretations to say that it imported the bishop's
betrayal of his country, in an invitation to Edward to come
and conquer it. The English king, as we have seen, had
stood high in the confidence of those who represented
public feeling in Scotland as a powerful and magnanimous
neighbour, and the death of the young queen ^'as, on the
face of affairs at least, a calamity to him as well as to Scot-
land. It appears, however, that the bishop stood alone,

* Litt. et Autogr. Edw. I., in Tur. Lond. ; Foedera, i. 74 u

CONFERENCE AT NORHAM, 1291. II7

or nearly so, in at that juncture welcoming the intervention
of Edward. Perhaps the confidence the others had in his
disinterested kindness as a neighbour had been shaken by
the mission of Anthony Beck and the demand of the
fortresses. At all events, on the records we find nothing
farther in the shape of an invitation from Scotland to settle
the affairs of the succession. If an invitation so meagrely
sanctioned as this was worthy of being placed on solemn
record, we may believe that any of a wider character would
have been carefully preserved. None exist, and none are
referred to in the abundant documents which do exist ;
and this is the more noticeable, as the chronicles tell
how the community of Scotland invited King Edward to
be arbiter among the competitors for the crown, and he,
treacherously taking advantage of the opportunity thus
afforded to him, laid his plots for the annexation of Scot-
land. He was prepared to take his own steps without any
invitations or persuasions, and, seeing his way before him,
went to work with great deliberation.

The next document is dated on the i6th April 1291,
and is a summons to the barons of the northern counties
of England to attend their king at Norham six weeks after
Easter, or on the 3d of June. Among the English barons
thus summoned stand the names not only of Baliol and
Bruce, between whom lay the real contest for the crown
of Scotland, but also of the subsidiary claimants, Com)m
and De Ros. Were there any extant document calling
on representatives from Scotland to be present, it would
be interesting to note its terms, but there is none. In a
writ, however, afterwards asking the Scots who were pre-
sent to attend a meeting on the south of the Tweed, it is
mentioned casually and courteously that they had attended
at King Edward's request.

The meeting was held at the appointed time. King
Edward with his advisers, and a body of nobles and pre-
lates, were there ; so were the greater part of the candi-
dates for the crown of Scotland, with their supporters.
There may also have been present some who rather re-
presented the Estates of Scotland than any competitor, in
a miscellaneous assemblage of persons, lay and clerical.

Il8 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

from England and Scotland.* There was present a
personage of a very lofty position, understood to separate
him from all the great interests at stake, in order that he
might, standing apart, be able to perform an important
function, which connected the imperial system of admin-
istration with the feudal. This was Johannes Erturi de
Cadomo, Notary Public of the Holy Roman Empire, who
minuted the events as they occurred, and whose record of
them, written with his own hand and properly certified, was
not to be questioned by baron, prelate, or monarch. Lest
there should be any suspicion of slovenliness or inaccur-
acy getting into the narrative, he takes care, from time to
time to repeat that what is said is attested by him, Notary
Public.^

And so this assembly proceeded to transact its mo-
mentous business. King Edward brought with him an
address, which was delivered in Norman French by his
chief justice Roger Brabazon. It set forth that the king
had been touched by the condition of Scotland, deprived
of her natural rulers by a succession of calamities, and
involved in great perplexities, and that he was influenced
by affectionate zeal for one and all of the community,
who looked to him for peace and protection. So he had
asked the meeting to assemble, and had himself come to
meet them from distant regions, feeling that, as Superior
or Overlord of the kingdom, it lay with him, in virtue of

* " Multisque etiam popularibus tarn clericis quam laicis regnorum
Angliae et Scotiae."

• Sir Francis Palgrave says : " The roll exhibits extraordinary care
in the manner in which it is made up, being written throughout in a
very bold and legible character, by the own proper hand of John of
Caen or de Cadomo, sometimes calling himself, according to the style
of the Papal Chancery, Johannes Erturi [/'. ^., films Erturi vel
Arthuri\ de Cadomo^ who subscribes his 'sign' or paraphe, and which
'sign* is also affixed athwart the junctions of each of the membranes
of which the roll is composed. This last authentication is added for
the same reason that a testator now adds his signature at the foot of
each sheet of a will. And the whole document was drawn up under
the inspection of Master Ilcnry de Newerk and of Sir Roger Bra-
bazon, thereunto specially assigned by the king." — Docarocnts and
Kecords, Introd. , liv, Iv.

CONFERENCE AT NORHAM, 1291. II9

such his superiority and lordship, to do justice to all, and,
putting an end to discord and dissension, to restore peace
and tranquillity to a distracted country. There is next
an assurance that he shall take nothing unjustly from any
one, nor refuse, delay, or impede justice to any one ; but
as Superior or Overlord of the kingdom do ample justice
to each and all. Then follows the concluding clause,
which was no doubt the object of anxious and thought-
ful adjustment. It was evidently framed on the policy,
that it would not be safe to act instantly on the claim of
superiority as a right known and admitted on all hands.
It therefore, in a form of peculiar courtesy, desires that,
for the facilitation of business, and that he may have the
benefit of their assistance in transacting it, those present
shall do him the favour to acknowledge his right as Su-
perior or Overlord.

It is then explained that the reader of this document
in Norman French took pains to render its purport in-
telligible to all ; whereupon, as the record further bears,
the Scots portion of the audience requested time to
consult their fellow-prelates and nobles, and the com-
munity of the kingdom, before they made answer to this
demand. Three weeks were allowed ; at the end of that
period all were to reassemble at Norham. A distinct
answer was to be given on the question of the Superi-
ority, and all who opposed or questioned it were to pro-
duce the documents or other evidence on which they
founded their opposition or dubiety.

This meeting was to be on Scots ground, whether to
assure the Scots who joined it that they were not under
coercion, or for some other reason ; and the record, with
its usual precision, tells that it was held in the open air in
a meadow by the Tweed, opposite to the Castle of Nor-
ham, the place of the previous meeting.^

1 ** I'rope flumen de Tueda, ex opposite castri de Norham, in area
viridi sub divo." Looking at the massive ruins of Norham, one
might imagine it selected as the centre of these transactions, showing
to the assembled Soots a visible symbol of the terrible power arrayed
against them. It was then freshly built, and endowed ^vith those new
eUments of resistance and destrucUon introduced by the Norman kings,

J 20 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

Here King Edward's speech was read by the Bishop of
Bath and Wells. The preamble displayed the unhappy
condition of Scotland, and the goodness of him who came
to the rescue, to some extent in the terms used in the pre-
vious speech, but with a Very distinct increase of colour-
ing, and in a much more affluent flow of words.

After the eloquence came the critical practical point.
The bishops, prelates, counts, magnates, and nobles of
Scotland had been invited to bring forward whatever they
could to impugn King Edward's rights of superiority over
Scotland, but nothing to that effect was proffered, exhib-
ited, or shown by them.

After this follows a statement of moment. The Com-
munity — the Communitas — had within the three weeks
given in some answer in writing, but it was not to the
point. Though it did not seem to King Edward and his
advisers to be to the point, yet would many people at the
present day like to know what it was that the community
of Scotland had to say against King Edward's demand
when the nobles and prelates were silent It would have
been interesting, also, had the momentous occasion on
which this body had acted, while the other orders of the
constitution remained dormant, given occasion for some
explicit knowledge of the men who were the " community."
If the term had been new, and used on this occasion only,
there would be room for question whether it was one of
much import. But it had been one of frequent use in
documents expressing the national will. It appears where
its import must have been weighed by Edward himself—
in the documents expressing the will of the Scots realm in
the matter of Queen Margaret's marriage. Nay, the fact
of its occurrence in these had to be emphatically repeated
by Edward himself; for, in announcing to King Eric the
consent of Scotland to the union, he names the com-
munity as one of the bodies who pledged it.^ The cas*

which were the wonder and terror of the day. Nothing of the kind
existed within Scotland, but there it stood close on the edge of the
Tweed— so close that a stone might have been pitched from England
into Scotland by a catapult on the battlement.
^ Custodes Magnates Prxlati ac tota communitas prxdicti Regai

CONFERENCE AT NORHAM, 1291. 121

iial revelation that this " community," however constituted,
had spoken, and that what it said was suppressed, becomes
an important feature in the history of Edward's claims.
The Great Roll of Scotland, as published in all the editions
of the Foedera, says nothing about the plea of " the com-
.raunity.*' This shows that, if the notary who attested all
the proceedings kept a note of this, it was excluded from
the roll deposited among the records of the crown in Eng-
land ; and that, as no one can question, with design.^ At
all events, we now know the fact that some answer was
made on the part of Scotland to King Edward's assertion
of feudal superiority. That this fact has but recently come
to light is only too characteristic of all our means of know-
ing the truth in the great question it bears on. Transac-
tions are profusely recorded, as if for the purpose of court-
ing all inquiry into doubts or difficulties that might affect
conclusions, yet one ever feels throughout all this candour
that the truth is to be found somewhere behind, and that
the abundance of punctilious record is devised to con-
ceal it*

Scotise unanimi et expressa voluntate sua, suum prsebuerant jam con-
sensum. — Litene Regis Angliae, Erico Norwagiae Regi de Papali dis-
pensatione bbtenta et de adventu Margaretae filise suae, Feed. ii.
731. The ** communitas " of the Latin used in Scotland is converted
into ''commune" in the Norman French of the English scribes.

^ Sir Francis Palgrave has preserved a curious little personal mat-
ter in which the king and the notary are concerned. The notary
prefers a petition to the effect, ** That he has by him many notes and
remembrances of important matters concerning Scotland, which can-
not be completed by any one but by himself. But during the last six
years he has been so hindered and riotted at law by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, that he has not been able to attend to the same, and
he prays that the king may give order thereupon. The concluding
portion of this petition rather tends to the supposition that Master
John thought he had a better chance of succeeding in defeating the
archbishop by the king's intervention, than by the justice of his own
cause." — Documents and Records, Introd., Ivi, Ivii.

May it not also tend to the supposition that Master John had it in
his power to do service in his way of recording the transactions, and
that it would be good policy to treat him well ?

' For this important contribution to history we are indebted to the
version of the Great Roll in the chronicles of St Albans, elsewhere
notiocd 4nore at length. The restored passage speaks for its ovq

122 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

All preliminary questions being thus cleared off, King
Edward announced that he found his title undisputed, and
intended immediately to proceed to business. Robert
Bruce was then called on to state before the assembly
whether he intended to prosecute his claim to the crown
of Scotland in the court of King Edward, the lord supe-
rior. The record makes him state, with all the redundance
peculiar to the whole proceeding, that there, in presence
of the prelates, nobles, and community, he finally and
expressly acknowledges Edward, King of England, as
Lord Superior of Scotland, and publicly agrees to plead
his cause before such his superior, and abide by his
decision.^

authenticity by filling an obvious blank. In the Great Roll as it
stands in the Foedera, a reference is made to the Prelates, the Nobles,
and the Community ; but at the point where the result of the refer-
ence has to be recorded, it is only set forth that the Prelates and
Nobles made no answer ; nothing is said of the Community. As the
passage stands in the Foedera, it is —

*' £t nihil omnino contra praemissaper episcopos, pnclatos, comites,
!)arones, magnates, et nobiles praefati regni Scotiae proposito exhibito
vel ostenso. . . . Propter quod vobis episcopis praelatis,*' &c.
To these he intimates that, nothing having been brought up to im-

f)ugn his right of superiority, he intends forthwith to do his duty as
ord superior. The suppressed passage, which lies between the words
4stenso and propter^ is as follows : —

** Licet in dicto termino assignato nomine communitatis saepedicti
regni Scotiae, aliqualis fuisset in scriptis data responsio ; nihil tamen
eficax fuit per communitatem eandem propositum, exhibitum, seu
ostensum, quoad rationes et documenta memorati domini nostri regis
quod ad jus superioritatis, seu directi dominii, executionis, seu exer-
citii, dicti juris, quod in praejudicio regno Scotiae sibi competit infinnet
aliquatenus vel enervet.* — Rishanger, 244.

It is elsewhere mentioned that this representation on the part of
the Community which contained nihil eficax was put in French — a
practice unusual in Scotland, though, as we have seen, it had been
previously adopted in courtesy to King Edward. It is very signiti-
cant that, on later occasions, when the silence of the parties interested
is referred to as vindicating Edward's assumption, it is not stated that
the Community were consulted — only the Prelates and Lords. This
kept out of view a party to his transactions with whom King Edward
was not inclined to deal,, and removed the inconsistency in the Great
Roll, where the question is put to three parties, and the result recorded
As if it had been put to two onlyi
' It may serve as an instance showing how little oiie can tmst tlia

CLAIMS OF THE COMPEtlTORS, 1291-92. I23

Florence, Count of Holland, follows, and after him Sir
John de Hastings, both repeating the same form, which
was doubtless accepted by the others, although the notary
seems to have contented himself ^vith transcribing it three
times over.^ Then follow Patric de Dunbar Earl of

chroniclers in matters long before their own day, to find the equiva-
lent for this transaction in the chronicle of Andrew Wyntoun, written
about a hundred years after the event : —

" To Robert the Brows sayd he :
' Gyve thou will hald in chef of me
For cvyr mare, and thi ofspryng,
1 sail do swa — thou sail be kyng.*
' Schyre,* sayd he, * sa God me save
The kynryk yhame I noucht til have.
But gyf it faf of lycht to me,
And gyve God will thet it swa be,
I sal als frely in all thyng
Hald it as aneris a kyng.
Or as my Eldrys be for me
Held it m freast Reawti/
Wvih this Robert past his way.'*

— Wyntoun, ii. 19.

In the Scotichronicon (xi. 10) it stands thus: **Cni simplicitet
respondit Kobertus et dixit, Si praedictum regnum per viam juris et
fidelem assisam adipisci valeam, bene quidem ; sin autem, nunquam
in servitutem redigam acquirendo mihi regnum praefatum, quod
omnes reges ejusdcm, cum magno taedio et labore, sine servitute, sub
firraa libertate hocusque servaverunt et tenuerunt;" and so in thie
other chronicles and the histories founded on them.

Such absolute inversion of fact is frequent at the period, and comes
of a very obvious source. The name of Bruce became eminently
popular in Scotland, and it became something more than a fashion to
say and to think everything good of it. There are, in fact, two great
elements of disturbance of the truth in the history of this period : the
-one arises out of the national quarrel, in which English and Scots
writers each took the part of his country ; the other comes of the
division at home between the two parties — Brace's and Baliors.
Brace's party have the last word in the dispute, and far the stronger
part in it, since their hero and his country were victorious together
before the Scots chroniclers began their work.

* The form was probably carefully prepared by a person learned in
Norman feudalism, which was then more than three hundred years
old, and had reached its prime. It is as follows : —

•*Ad quae dictus dominus Robertus de Bras finaliter et expresse,

coram Episcopis, Praelatis, Comitibus, Baronibus, Magnatibus, et

Communitate, pradictis, ct nullo contradicente vel reclamante,

. respondit, quod dictum dominum Edwardum, Regem Anglioe, in

- taperiorem, seu directum, dominum regni Scotioe publice recognoscit ;

tt apcrte concedit- stare juri coram eo super jttre successionis, quod

124 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

March, William de Ros, William de Vesci, Robert de
Pinkeny, and Nicholas de Soulis. We are next told that
John de Baliol, coming afterwards, put in his claim, which
was admitted on the usual condition, and he is followed
by John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, who also is spoken
of as a late arrival. These two appear not to have been
present at the previous proceedings.

Here, then, were ten competitors for the succession to
the crown of Scotland, who all accepted Edward as the
Lord Superior of Scodand without hesitation. They had
no doubt been dealt with beforehand, and knew exactly
what they had to do. Much eloquence has been wasted
on these men as the base betrayers of the independence
and liberties of their country ; but if we look at the sur-
rounding conditions, nothing can be more natural than
their conduct. To Scotland they were aliens, and they
belonged to a class of aliens peculiarly offensive to the
people, of whose evil wishes regarding them they were
well aware. That some of them held great estates in
Scotland is true, but it cannot be doubted that they would
gladly have exchanged their holdings for equivalents else-
where. In dramatic history, the policy of some of them
can, by a little colouring, be rendered unchivalrous, if not
base. They appeal to Scotland as ambitious of reigning
over an independent kingdom — they offer that independ-
ence to King Edward as a consideration for the employ-
ment of his influence in their favour. No doubt they
dared not, in Scotland, hint anything about vassalage to
England. Whatever may have been privately known or
hinted among those who could be trusted, such a condi-
tion could never take practical shape in dealings with the
Scots Estates. To have any chance with them, the Nor-
man courtier must make himself, as nearly as he could, a
patriotic Scotsman. To Bruce, Baliol, and Comyn — the
three who had a strong Scots connection, and large estates

sibi ad praefatum regnum Scotise competit quoquo modo ; et etiam,
ad petendum, respondendum, et recipiendum, ab eo, et coram eo,
sicut a superiore et directo domino regni Scotise, ut prsemittitur, com-
plementum justitix in hac parte." — fUshanger, 246.

CLAIMS OF THE COMPETITORS, 1291-92. !r»5

in the country — serious and critical considerations must
have thus opened. It is probable that none of them felt
assured at first that King Edward would take the matter
in hand, and that each looked solely to his territorial
power in Scotland, with assistance from his English
estates.

The whole face of things was changed to them when it
was seen that Edward was in earnest, and determined to
fight for supremacy in Scotland. In the instance of any
one of them resistance was utter folly. With no real hold
in Scotland, he could only forfeit his English estates, if no
worse came of his opposition. Then they belonged to
the English court, and looked to the English king as the
fountain of promotion. It was only natural, then, that
they should frankly agree to his terms, and accept his
decision on their claims. Each of them was, of course,
sufficiently conscious that an independent sovereignty was
a more illustrious position than that of a feudatory ; yet
it may be questioned whether any one of them would
have preferred the position of independent king, over so
restless and imperfectly feudalised a state as Scotland, to
the function of ruling the country as feudatory of Edward,
with the power of England at his back.

This is perhaps a suitable place for a brief note of the
nature of the several claims. It is true that two only —
those of Bruce and Baliol— came up as of sufficient power
to affect the external current of history. But we shall
find that the procedure relating to the whole array of
claimants, and to the individual position of each, affords
curious glimpses into the politics of the age.

It was the obvious policy of the Lord Superior to wel-
come all comers. None came there who did not acknow-
ledge his title ; and every claimant who appeared with a
following of supporters made a sensible addition to the
number of influential persons who acknowledged and
attested this title. The more thickly the suitors crowded
to his court, the more their counter-claims entangled the
proceedings into complexities that had to be patiently un-
ravelled. The more protracted were the difficulties and
doubts which taxed the experience and skill of the sages

126 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION,

of the common and civil law, the more fully did the whole
process impress on all men's minds the reality of -the
Lord Superior's title and power. The jealous formalists
of feudal procedure were careful at every step to announce
the style, title, and prerogatives of the Lord Superior.
When a new claimant appeared, the first thing he had to
do was to record his acknowledgment of this great con-
dition ; and at every step onwards in the resumption of
his pleadings he professed that he spoke to the Lord
Superior of the realm of Scotland, and humbly entreated
the king in that capacity to do him right. If the
long-cherished object of the Norman kings of England
was to be accomplished by fastidious adherence to feudal
forms, and a patient hearing of the pleadings of all
claimants, the Great Roll of Scotland should certainly
have brought the question to an end.

It was not among those who were nearest in blood to
Alexander III. that the contest ultimately lay. Their
descent from the royal house was in all instances tainted
with illegitimacy ; and that they should have pushed their
claims only shows that the Church had not yet absolutely
established the rule that from her alone, and her ceremony
and sacrament, could come the union capable of transmit-
ting a right of succession to offspring. ^ The ecclesiastical
power, however, had advanced since the days of Norman
William. The Church was strong enough to refuse all
ecclesiastical sanction or ceremonial to the crowning of a
king the union of whose parents was not sanctified by the
Church. The nearest of these claimants was Nicholas de
Soulis, descended of the marriage of Marjory, an illegiti-
mate daughter of Alexander II., to Alan the Durward. It
has been already noted that Alan drew on himself, even
in Alexander III.'s lifetime, a suspicion that by getting his
wife legitimated at Rome he might make his family the
next in succession to the throne. His descendant pleaded
some sort of legitimation, but scarcely obtained a hearing
for it. Among others of the same class were the Earl of
March, William de Ros, William de Vesci, already men-

. . * See above, i. 419.

CLAIMS OF THE COMPETITORS, 1291-92. 127

Uoned, along with Roger de Mandeville and Patrick
CS^-lightly-r-all these were descendants of illegitimate chil-
dren of William the Lion. The claim of Robert de Pinkeny
was. a degree more remote, as he professed descent from
the fatlier of William, Prince Henry, who did not live to
be king. This was the stock of the legitimate claimants.
Of these Florence, Count of Holland, claimed as the
descendant of Ada, the sister of William the Lion. This
claim had to yield to that of the male branch, the descend-
ants of Ada's brother David ; but we shall find that the
Count of Holland pushed his case eagerly, and that his
pleading discloses some very curious incidents of feudal
organisation.

The way is now cleared for turning to the claimants
among whom the competition actually lay. These were
the descendants of David, Earl of Huntingdon, who was
tlie grandson of King David by his son Prince Henr}',
and the brother of William the Lion.

AVe have seen how the earldom of Huntingdon in Eng-
land was held by the King of Scots. In connection with
the Treaty of Falaise, by which King William in his cap-
tivity acknowledged the feudal superiority of King Henry,
there were several complicated transactions about Hunting-
don in the way of forfeiture and restoration ; the conclusion
of which was that the dignity and estates became vested
in David, brother of the King of Scots, and so were ever
afterwards disconnected with the crown of Scotland.

Prince David united himself to a powerful English house
bymarrjdng Matilda, daughter of Ranulph, Earl of Chester.
He went to the Holy Land under the banner of Richard
of the Lion's Heart. According to the Chronicles, he
took Acre for King Richard, and was afterwards the hero
of a whole romance of adventures in shipwreck, captivity,
and other perils.^

^ "As the Christian armie laie at siege before the citie of Acres, .
otherwise called Aeon, it chanced that one Oliver, a Scotishman borne, \
was within the towne reteined in service among the Saracens ; for being
convict of felonie in his native countrie he was banished out of the
same, and fled to the Saracens, remaining so long among them, that
he had learned their tongue very perfectly, so that as then few knew

123 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

Margaret, the eldest daughter of Earl David, became
the wife of Allan of Galloway, the representative of that
line of half-independent chiefs which had been so sore an
interruption to the aggrandising process of the Scots crown.
Their daughter, Devergoil, was married to John de Baliol,
Lord of Nyvell in Normandy, and of Harcourt and Castle
Barnard in England. The great wealth of this house gave
solidity to the elements of princely rank inherited by the
Scots heiress. The lords of Galloway had been diaro-
pions and benefactors of the Church within their own pro-
vince, where they founded four monastic houses — Whithorn,
Dundrennan, Glenluce, and Tongland. The enlightened
munificence of their descendant the Lady of Baliol is
testified in Baliol College of Oxford, founded by her when

what countryman he was. It fortuned that this Oliver had one of the
gates in keeping, on that side the towne where was but a single wall,
without trenches, or anie other fortification. He happened by some
good adventure to espie amongst the watch of those that were of the
retinue of David, Earl of Huntingdon, one of his own kinsmen named
John Durward, with whom of long time before he had beene most
familiarlie acquainted ; and incontinentlie he called to the same Dur-
ward, desiring under assurance to taike with him. After certeine
communication, for that this Oliver had not as yet utterlie in his heart
renounced the Christian faith, he appointed with Durward to give
entrie at a certeine houre unto Earl David, and to all the Christian
armie, upon condition that Earl David would see him restored againe
unto his land and heritage in Scotland, llie houre set Earl David
came with a great jwwer of men to the gate before rehersed, where he
was suffered to enter according to appointment, and incontinentlie with
great noise and clamour brake into the midst of the citie.*' — Holing-
shed, i. 384.

The chronicle goes on to say how, in the tempest which imperilled
the return of Richard and his followers in the Mediterranean, Earl
David was cast ashore on the coast of Egypt and sold as a slave.
There he was bought by certain Venetians, who took him home to
their own city, where he was ransomed by English merchants. Before
reaching home he was again storm-tossed, and, running for the Firth
of Tay, he put in at a place called Alectum, which, in his thankful-
ness, he changed to Dei Donum, or the gift of God, whence it has
ever since been called Dundee. It is to his thankfulness, and the
fulfilment of a vow taken in his peril, that the chroniclers attribute
his founding the Abbey of Lindores, on the south shore of the Firth
of Tay. The scattered ruins show that its buildings were once
magnificent.

CLAIMS OF THE COMPETITORS, 1291-92. 129

the was a widow. ^ It was her son, and the great'grandsou
of Earl David, who was now a claimant for the crown,

Devergoil had a sister, Marjory, married to John Comyn,
Lord of Badenoch. He also had princely possessions ;
and his race, of which there were many branches, formed
altogether the most powerful baronial family in Scotland.
He boasted too, but in a shape that has not distinctly
come down to us, of descent from Donald Bain, a son of
" the gracious Duncan," who for a brief space occupied the
throne. Comyn was nominally a claimant for the crown.
Had there been a scuffle for the succession, his chances of
success might have been strong. But in the decorous and
precise court of the Lord Superior he could plead nothing
to the point but his descent from a granddaughter of
Earl David, and this brought him immediately behind
Baliol as the descendant of her elder sister. His claim,
then, may be considered among the others taken out of
the arena of the contest, and we must go back to Earl
David to see where Baliol was to find his real competitor.

Earl David's second daughter, Isobel, as we laave seen,
was married to Robert de Brus, or Bruce, a cadet of Nor-
man family, powerful among the baronial houses of the
north of England, where we have met with them fighting
against Scotland in the wars about Northumberland. This
Robert, in addition to great estates in England, was Lord
of Annandale in Scotland, which had been in the family for
upwards of a century and a half, as the gift of King David.
The competitor for the crown was a son of this marriage,
a man advanced in years, and with a son in middle life,
who had enhanced the fortunes and power of the house
by marriage with the heiress of Carrick. He pleaded a
special title on a transaction some fifty years old, which

* The charter of foundation by ** Dervorguilla de Galwedia Domina
deBalliolo" is No. IV. of "Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of
Scotland/' selected under direction of the Lord Clerk Register, Part
II. ** At the time of our charter she had been twelve years a widow, and
was carrying on the education of her two sons at her new college-*-
among them perhaps the unfortunate John, who already looked to the
throne of Scotland, which afterwards, in right of his mother, he
foocessfuUy claimed. '''--(Editor's Introduction.)

VOL. II. I

130 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

gave him a sort of parliamentary title — King Alexandcf
II., when childless, having, as he asserted, named him
heir to the throne before the assembled magnates and
community, who accepted him as the person who was to
reign over ihem if Alexander died childless.^ The condi-
tions had materially changed, however, since that transac-
tion. He was then the only male descendant of Earl
David ; now there were several male descendants. The
question then swept clear of this old business, and settled
on the hereditary claims of the several candidates.^

* Sec above, p. 13.

' Though there is no belter authority for this transaction than the
statement of a competitor for the crown, who was not very scrupulous
in what he said or did, yet it is natural to tlie circumstances. Be-
tween collaterals equally near in blood — the one female by an elder
daughter, the other male, though by a younger — it was conformable
with all the practice of European states that the male should have
preference. When the question came up, after intermediate events
which bade fair to supersede any practical occasion for solving it, the
rise of a new generation made it a question between male representa-
tives ; and in almost every country in Europe at that time this would
have made a serious difference in the elements for decision on the suc-
cession, whether that decision was to be made by a feudal lord, or, as
it then was in Scotland, by the principal persons and community of
the country.

This incidental plea of Bruce's is duly entered in the Great Roll as
already cited. It comes out more fully in the papers about the com-
petition for the crown, edited by Sir Francis Palgrave, in his volume
of Documents illustrating the History of Scotland. In these docu-
ments the affair is twice stated ; once when Bruce threatens that, if
any step be taken by the guardians inimical to his rights, he intends
to throw himself oh the protection of the King of England ; and
again, when King Edward, as Lord Superior, heard him plead his
case as a claimant of the crown. Bruce's statement is of a natural
occurrence; he maintains that it was acknowledged by Alexander III.,
and appeals about it to the testimony of persons still living. Any
record of it might have disappeared in the general loss cause<l by the
confusions of the wars, without supposing that King Edward thought
it worth his while to destroy it. Then, when Alexander II. had a
son, and that son reigned and had a family likely to continue the suc-
cession, the adjustment of the succession among collaterals ceasing to
be of moment might naturally enough be permitted to go Mrith the
other unimportant matters which dropped out of the National Re-
cords.

It is not easy in modem English to convey a notion of the technical
formality of these Norman feudal proceedings. The nearest thing ta

CLAIMS OF THE COMPETITORS, 1291-92. 131

Bruce's position was, that he was descended from the
younger daughter, but was nearer by a generation than his
competitor Baliol, the descendant of the elder daughter.
Here, then, lay the great question that was put at issue in

the impression of an actual perusal of them is to be found in the ren-
dering of their meaning by Sir Francis Palgrave, who was a thoroughly
congenial spirit, and their true interpreter to the present day. What
follows is given as a sp«cimen, being applicable to this stage of the
proceedings. Bruce brings up the recognition by Alexander II., and
Baliol meets it Had Sir Francis been a great historical artist, he
could not have put the hard formalities of the Lord Superior's court
in better antithesis with the momentous interests at issue, and the
memorable struggle in preparation, than in speaking of the king, who
desired to make a settlement, having died seised of the kingdom in
his demesne of fee and right, and that from him the right descended
to one Alexander, his son and heir.

'Bruce states, that when Alexander II. proceeded in war against
the Islands, he granted and ordained, as he who was best informed
concerning his own blood or family, and by assent of the bishops and
earls, and of his baronage, that, in the event of his dying without
an heir of his body, Sir Robert Bruce, as the nearest of his blood,
should be held his heir in the kingdom of Scotland : and a writing
was made accordingly, and sealed with the seals of the king, the
bishops, and the other great lords, and deposited in the treasury.
And of this he prays that mquiry may be made by the baronage of the
land, for of those who know the fact many are now living.

*' The traverse or replication made by Balliol, as entered upon the
roll of Norham, and also upon the notarial protocol, seems to show
that the petition of Bruce there presented contained some further
averments : for, in recitine^ this instrument, Balliol, after noticing that
Bruce had alleged that Alexander 1 1, made the recognition before his
barons, proceeds to add, that Bruce also stated that Alexander III.
made the same recognition, with the knowledge of Devergoil, the
mother of John Balliol, who did not contradict the same. Balliol
then proceeds to argue — cautiously adopting the forms of pleading
and technical language of the English common law — that such recog-
nition cannot avail, inasmuch as Bruce acknowledges that Alexander
II. died seised of the kingdom in his demesne of fee and right, and
that from him the right descended to one Alexander as his son and
heir, who in like manner died seised thereof; and therefore, by his
own acknowledgment, he shows that Alexander II. did not die with-
out heirs of his body. And the right of his kingdom was transmitted
by his death to his heir, and thus by the recognition of Alexander
II. (if it was made) no right could be acquired. The original repli-
cation of Balliol to the first petition of Bruce is extant ; it is much
damaged, but we can collect that in its general import the argument
was pursued in the same manner as in the replication recorded on the

132 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

the court of the Lord Superior. It is necessary, before
going into it, to say that John de Hastings, Lord of
Abergaveny, appeared as the descendant of Ada, the
third daughter of Earl David. His claim from the begin-
ning lay behind both Baliol's and Bruce*s, but we shall
find that the pleadings in it afford some instructive
matter.

These, which may be called preliminary proceedings,
occupied thirteen meetings in the year 1291 — the first in
May, the last in August The record notes precisely each
day, with the business transacted and the place where the
meeting was Iield. The definition of the place of meeting
in each instance is given with the precision acquired by
lawyers, who do not profess merely to satisfy those who
want to know the fact, but are prepared to baffle the
enemy entitled to take advantage of every quibble which
he can found on ambiguity or indistinctness. When busi-
ness goes on in the Castle of Norham, it is within the
king's chamber there. When there is an adjournment to
the other side of the river, and to Scots ground, the i)Iacc
of meeting is not only described as a meadow on the mar-
gin of the Tweed, opposite to Norham, but the parish and
the diocese are given. Of meetings held in Berwick, one
is in the castle, and others are in the church of the Domi-
nican Friars there, described as deserted.

Important business was transacted at the meeting held
on the 3d of August King Edward intimated his desire
that the two competitors, Baliol and Bruce, should each
choose forty men, while he should choose twenty-four, or
a larger number if he thought fit. There is an indefinite-
ness, very unlike the rest of the record, in the functions of
the persons to be so chosen : they are spoken of as if they
were to be mixed up into a common body of referees to
consider the whole matter at issue.^ The arrangement

Norham roll." — Palgrave*s Documents and Records, Introd., p.
xxiii. XXV.

^ ''Qui omnes assignati et nominati, congregati in unum, in loco et
termino per pnedictum dominum regem statuendis, de jure cujuslibeC
pnedictorum nobilium, jus in successione pr%dicti rcgrxi Scotiae vea-

CLAIMS OF THE COMPETITORS, 1 291-92. 1 33

must have seemed not only just but generous, if it was
taken up at the time as the English chroniclers speak oi
it. King Edward was so confident in the goodness of his
cause that he left it to be disposed of by one hundred and
four arbiters, of whom only twenty-four were named by
himself, while eighty represented Scotland. How this
anomalous body was worked we shall presently see. The
lists of these " arbiters," as they are generally termed, are
given in the Great Roll. It may be more instructive to
see the part taken by those of them who accepted and
acted, than to examine the lists themselves, which may
contain the names of men not to be counted on. King
Edward's twenty-four, of course, were his own prelates
and great functionaries, with a few of the high nobles.
One name on his list is special, and carries an appearance
of earnest desire to walk by the law; it is entered as
William of Kilkenny, Professor of the Civil or Roman
Law.^

It will be observed that, while ten claimants have been
entered, only two, and those the two on whom the final
contest fell, joined in this selection of " arbiters." It was
notj however, intended that the others should be pufcut
of court. King Edward did nothing without an object,
and an object there must have been in this peculiar ar-
rangement, which discussed a by-question between two
claimants, leaving the final issue open to the whole. Per-
haps the policy of the arrangement lay in this, that in
Bruce and Baliol, and those they might bring with them,
the Lord Superior knew whom he had to deal with per-
sonally ; among a set of miscellaneous strangers, bringing
their friends and supporters into the controversy, he might
find troublesome people. Ostensibly there was a vindi-
cation of his course in this, that a judgment on the simple
question, which of these two had the better title, would
clear away a difficulty coming of an unfixed principle of
law. It would settle whether the nearer descendant by

dicantium, cognoscant et discutiant, prout ration! et juri visum fuerit
tiiagis conveniens." — Foedera (Record edition), i. 766.
* " Willclmus dc Kylkenny, Juris CivilLs Professor.**

134 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

the younger child, or the more remote descendant by the
elder, had the preferable title.

At this meeting the whole body of candidates, who as
yet had only generally announced their claims, rendered
til em in technical form. In the court of the Lord Superior
nothing could be admitted as understood fact, even in so
large a public question as the succession to the crown of
Scotland, and each must give the genealogical foundation
of his claim. The cases so put in are exquisite pieces of
draftsmanship, and might be models for the peerage prac-
titioner or any other genealogical lawyer of the present
day. That ancestor in actual possession of the crown to
whom the claimant pleads the right of succession is
brought distinctly out His several lines of descendants,
both those which have given successors to the crown and
those which have not, are discussed successively ; and as
each is thrown out, the claim goes back again to the com-
mon ancestor until all are exhausted — some by the line
coming to an end, some by disqualification, until the
claimant comes out as the true representative. So, each
having in terms of a formula put in his claim, the plead-
ings and arguments on which each founded in support of
his own claim, and in demolition of other claims, come, as
we shall see, at a later stage of the proceedings.

From this meeting on the 3d of August 1291 the whole
business was adjourned to June 1292.

The Lord Superior had now in his hands what lawyers
call a heavy case ; and it cannot be denied that under his
directions it went through its stages with all deliberation,
receiving a due amount of skilled attention — all recorded
so fully that we can even now trace in the policy that
ruled the whole, those aims which extended far beyond
the mere decision of a legal or genealogical question.
Before following up the history of this great litigation,
certain public measures incidental to the adjustment oi
the right of supremacy may be mentioned.

The government of the country was in the hands of
guardians, who had been appointed by the Estates. Ed-
ward did not wrest their authority from them, but, as Lord
Superior, he renewed their appointment as guardians, add-

PROCEEDINGS IN SCOTLAND, 1291-92. I35

tng Brian Fitz Allan to their number. He appointed
the Bishop of Caithness to be Lord Chancellor of Scot-
Vandy with a certain Walter de Amundesham as his col-
league in the capacity of Keeper of the Seal. The old
seal of Scotland was broken into four pieces, and a
new seal was made adapted to the change of conditions.
He took the oath of allegiance from all the Scots in
attendance; but who these may have been, other than
the supporters of the candidates, with some of whom
we may hereafter meet, it is hard to tell. He issued aa
intimation to his Chief Justice of England, that as the
two countries were now, by the blessing of God, united^
his writs should henceforth be current in Scotland as well
as England.

The Lord Superior made an early demand that the
guardians should give up the national fortresses to him.
This was conceded as a matter of course. We have the
orders by which he called upon each governor to give up
his charge, and these orders court criticism. In the pre-
amble he does not make display of his office of Lord
Superior as in the documents which were not to go to
Scotland. He is Edward, King of England, Lord of Ire-
land, and Duke of Guienne ; and he demands delivery
of the fortress by assent of the guardians and of the several
candidates, and only towards the conclusion does he
briefly bring in his title of " Soveryn Seygnur." ^ The
names of the superseded governors have a sound as Nor-
man as the names of their successors ; yet it is difficult to
interpret the race or nation from such a sound, since the
Norman manner of naming was the court style, and was
imitated by all who claimed high rank. One governor, with
a thoroughly Norman title, distinguished himself by a fas-
tidious sense of military honour. Gilbert d'Umfravile^
Earl of Angus, in command of the fortresses of Forfar and
Dundee, said he had received his command from the
Estates of the realm., and demurred to render it up to any
other authority. King Edward humoured him by a solemn
grant of indemnity for any consequences to be inairred

* Rot. Scot, 1. 1.

136 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

by obedience to his command.^ The guardians were com
missioned throughout Scotland to exact the oath of alle*
giance to the Lord Superior. The instruction was general
to require it from those who ought to render it, with spe-
cial directions for the treatment of each case. Those who
should come and swear were of course in their duty, but
those who, coming, refused to swear, were to be appre«
hended ; of those who did not come but excused them-
selves, the excuses were to be heard ; and lastly, they who
neither came nor proffered excuses were to be coerced.
This swearing-in was to last for fifteen days, beginning on
the 23d of July, and certain central stations were fixed
where attendance should be given to put the oath.* How
far effect was given to this order must have depended on
many local contingencies.* On the whole, the public
measures taken by Edward during the progress of the
great cause have a moderate tone — a tone as if he re-
strained himself from too suddenly breaking in upon the
established order of things with his new title and its pre-
rogatives ; and in this specialty all the documents passing
into Scotland have a very significant difference of style
from those peculiar to his transaction with the claimants
of the succession.

Among King Edward's actions before the meetings about
the succession were resumed, there was one which pro-
bably drew little notice towards it at the time. It became
notorious enough in after times, and has a conspicuous
place in various narratives, where the shape it takes is,
that Edward removed the ancient records of the kingdom
of Scotland, carefully searching out all those which pro-
claimed the national independence and the supreme sove-
reignty of the crown. On the 12 th of August he issued a
commission to certain persons — John de Lithegreynes,
William of Lincoln, and Thomas of Fisheebum — to ex-
amine all kinds of documents in the Castle of Edinburgh,

^ Foedera (Record edition), i. 756.

' One of these is Inverness, which the foreign notary calls Inthemez.
^ Some of the homages so received are to be found in the Ragman
Rolls.

REMOVAL OF RECORDS, 129a. 1 37

or elsewhere in Scotland, which might be found to beai
on the succession to the crown or on his own rights in
reference to Scotland. As the persons who were to give
access to the documents, the writ was addressed to Ralph
Basset of Drayton, the Governor of the Castle of Edin*
burgh, who had just been appointed by Edward, to the
Bishop of St Andrews, and to William of Dumfries, Keeper
of the Rolls. There is a precept to the Chancellor of
Scotland to pay the reasonable expenses of these commis-
sioners, as being occupied in a matter peculiarly concern*
ing Scotland ; and their proceedings regarding the records
passing through their hands are registered with thorough
Norman precision. We have a minute of the depositing
of a portion of these documents in the treasury of the
Castle of Berwick, in which are set forth with all precision
the names and titles of the eminent persons present on
the occasion, the locking up and sealing of the box in
which the documents were deposited, and an inventory
of the documents themselves. There is another list of
documents authenticated as having been given over by
King Edward to John, King of Scotland, best known as
John Baliol.

There seems no occasion for questioning the accuracy
of these minutes and lists, or for supposing that Edward
found anything so emphatically proclaiming the independ-
ence of Scotland that it would be his interest to suppress
it. The records of a self-governing state do not set forth
that it is independent of any other — such a declaration
would only lead to a suspicion that it was not quite true.
The only document in which the tenor of history would
lead us to expect to find a specific declaration of the inde-
pendence of the crown, is the revocation by King Richard
of the admission of vassalage, extracted from King William
when a captive at Falaise ; and this document is not only
fairly titled in the inventory so as to show its tenor, but has
been carefully preserved to our own day so as to be pub-
lished in the great collection of early English diplomacy.'

- The careful commissioners notice the defective condition of th€
seal, as if to save themselves from any reflections on the matter i-^

£38 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

As to the other documents entered in the inventories, but
not now to be found, the preservation of the old records
of England has not been so well cared for that Scotland
can complain of more than her share in the losses incident
to a common negligence.

On the other hand, if we are to suppose that Scotland
possessed a series of royal and parliamentary records, ex-
tending back through hundreds of years, and that it was
the interest of King Edward to suppress such a memorial
of ancient self-government and independent sovereignty,
we shall suppose something extremely improbable. Some
collections of old laws certainly were lost, and their loss
is to be regretted.^ In general, however, we may believe
that the records followed the introduction of the Normans
and their practices into Scotland, and that they were a
humble imitation of what had been going on in England
since the Conquest.

Such of the documents as may be counted state papers,
affecting the interests both of England and Scotland, bear
chiefly on the Scots claims upon Northumberland, and
the negotiations with the discontented barons of England.
Others there are which might have thrown desirable light
on the feudal formalities by which the King of Scots en-
deavoured to stretch his authority over Galloway, the Isles,
and the other outlying territories. But the bulk of the
collection must have lain in papers revealing the practice
of the tenure of property and the administration of justice
through charters, inquests, assizes, and other records,
many of them referring to merely private and local affairs.

** Litera Richardi R^s, promissoria Regi Scotiae quod restitiiet ei
omnia jura sua. Sed I'ix apparet sigillum,

** Charta ejusdem Richardi Regis de restitutione jurium et cas*
trorum libertatum et literarum Regis Scotiae.''

^ For instance : Unus Rotulus de Antiquis Statutis Regni Scocise.
Unus Rotulus de Statutis Regis Malcolmi et Regis Davidis. Duo
Rotuli de Legibus et Assisis Regni Scotiae, et de Legibus et Consue-
tudinibus Burgorum Scociae et de quibusdam Statutis editis per Reges
Scociae. Though we have in some shape much of the substance of
these bui^her laws (see chap, xvii.), it would have been of moment
to possess so early a version of then:.

PRECEDENTS IN THE CHRONICLES, 1292. I39

Of one tiling we may feel assured, that nowhere did King
Edward find any writings to help him in his claim of feudal
superiority ; if he had found any, they would have doubt-
less been heard of.^

King Edward sought assistance from records in another
quarter, but not with much more success. The chron-
icles of events preserved in the ecclesiastical establish-
ments have been often referred to in these pages. Natur-
ally they chiefly abounded in the houses of the Regulars,
who had the more leisure and quietness for such work ;
but they were also kept in the chapters of cathedrals and
other ecclesiastical colleges.^ King Edward made a con-
tribution to this class of muniments, by sending for pre-
servation to several religious houses the proceedings re-
lating to the succession to the cro>vn of Scotland, as held
in his own court as Lord Superior. Before doing so, how-
ever, he drew on these establishments for such assistance
as their past records could give him. There are writs
issued by him ordering returns, in some instances, of all
that their registers or chronicles tell about the relations
between England and Scotland — in others, of any in-
formation so afforded concerning homage by the King of
Scotland to the King of England. Many of the returns
made in answer to this requisition have been preserved.
So far as the extracts they give from the chronicles belong
to true history, it would be a vain repetition to give them
here, because, so far as the author accepts them as true,
they have found their share in the preceding pages. Out
of the matter contained in these returns, and the chron-

* The commissioners' inventories, &c, above referred to, are to be
found partly in the Fcedera and the Rotuli Scotise, and in Robert-
son's Introduction to the Index to the Charters (1798). The most
authentic rendering of them, however, is in the "Instrumenta et
Acta de Munimentis Regni Scocise," in the first volume of the
Statutes.

' Of the workshops of these chronicles — the " scriptorium ** at-
tached to each monastery, in which the scribe^ belonging to the house
sat to copy whatever was enjoined them by superiors — ^an account will
he found in Sir Thomas liaidy's Preface to. the third volume of his
' Descriptive Catalocue of Materials relating to the History of Great
Britain and Ireland/ ai.

146 THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION.

icles of England at large, a case was made out for the
superiority of the King of England over Scotland, which
can best be told afterwards in an account of the historical
narrative in which King Edward brought the question
ander the consideration of the Papal Court

141

CHAPTER XIX.

ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION,

niE ASSEMBLAGE RESUMED—A NEW CLAIMANT: ERIC OF NOKWAT
—THE QUESTION LYING BETWEEN BALIOL AND BRUCE, AND BE-
TWEEN THE DISTANT DESCENDANT OF THE ELDER AND THE IMME-
DIATE DESCENDANT OF THE YOUNGER DAUGHTER — INDICATION OF
A LEANING TO THE FORMER YIEW-— CONTINUED PLEADINGS—RE-
SOLUTION OF THE QUESTION INTO THE SHAPE OF LITIGATION FOR
AN ESTATE— THIS ENCOURAGED BY EDWARD AS LORD SUPERIOR—
THE COMPETITORS ADMIT ALL HIS CLAIMS. AND ARE READY TO DO
HOMAGE— QUESTIONS OF PARTITION AND COMPROMISE OPENED AND
PLEADED— PECULIAR CASE PUT IN FOR THE COUNT OF HOLLAND—
THE JUDGMENT IN FAVOUR OF BALIOL— CEREMONIES OF HOMAGE-
CEREMONIES OF INVESTITURE IN SCOTLAND— THE NEW KING'S UN-
POPULARITY AND DANGER — QUESTION HOW FAR PUT UNDER RE-
STRAINT—LITIGATIONS APPEALED FROM HIM TO THE ENGLISH
COURT— HIS HUMILIATION— A CRISIS.

Adjourned a$ we have seen from August isrpi, the great
business of the adjustment of the succession was resumed
in the beginning of June 1292.^ A new claim was then
given in, which surely must have disturbed the gravity
even of the decorous court of the Lord Superior. It was
rendered by Eric, King of Norway, the son-in-law of
Alexander III., and the father of the young queen who
had died on her way home. He offers no explanation of
any special Norse or other custom of descent on which he

^ In the Fcedera the resumption is dated on 1st June, while the ad-
)onmxnent is to 2d June. Sir Francis Palgrave shows that this is the
correct date. The ist of June in that year was Trinity Sunday, and
this was doubtless foreseen in fixing tne adjournment (Documents,
•Introduction, liiL) So much for the precision of Norman recorders
Uid of editors like-minded.

142 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION,

founds, but simply asks the Lord Superior to award to
him his daughter's kingdom, devolving on him by heredi-
tary right* Probably, hearing that suitors were welcome,
he thought he might as well take his chance with the rest ;
unless, indeed, his object was to call attention to a second-
ary and more hopeful claim ; this was for arrears of rents
or revenues — what English lawyers call mesne profits.
These he demanded for the four years since the death of
King Alexander, on the double ground that he was exe-
cutor to his daughter, and had been put to many charges
and expenses concerning her. In addition to this, he
rendered in the body of his claim an account for arrears
of his wife's dowry. Whatever he may have made of the
pecuniary matters, his claim to the crown was not pressed,
and judgment went against him by default.

The auditors or arbiters — the eighty of Scotland and
twenty-four of England — make their appearance at this
meeting in a shape which has puzzled historians, and is
not consistent with the place they were allowed afterwards
to hold. On the face of the record in the Great Roll, it
would appear that the king put it to the eighty from Scot-
land, and to them alone, to inform him on what law and
customs judgment should be given.* The answer was one
of utter confusion. From disputes among themselves,
and the vast importance of the cause, they professed to
be unable to make answer without more counsel and
deliberation.^

They sought assistance from the twenty-four of England,

1 ** Ipsum regnum per mortem dominae Margaritse filiae nostrse,
olim dominae et reginse regni Scotise, sit ad nos pleno jure hereditario
legitime devolutum.** He makes his claim through "veros et legi-
timos attomatos et procuratores et nuncios speciales, nobilem vinim
Advenum de Hagr, et Magistrum Hugutio Plebenum plebis," &c.

s ** Per quas leges et consuetudines sit ad judicium proceden-
dum?"

'* ** Qui inter se super hoc diligentem habentes tractatum, concoi-
diter responderunt, quod propter aliquas discordias adhuc inter eos
existentes super legibus et consuetudinibus regni Scotia:, quoad casum
tam arduum, et retroactis temporibus inauditum, eidem domino regi
consulere non audebant in facto prsedicto, absque major! consilio ct
dcliberatione pleniori."

MANAGEMENT OF THE REFEREES, 1292. I43

but these, for some undiscoverable reason, were equally
reticent, and would not commit themselves. The king
then adjourned the meeting to the loth of October,
announcing that he would in the mean time push inquiries
all over the world to get light for his guidance on this
vexed question. We can only see in all this that there is
something behind it which the record is intended rather
to conceal than to explain.

When the proceedings are resumed at the adjourned
meeting, the Great Roll of Scotland would leave us no
better acquainted with the actual share taken in the dis-
cussion by the auditors; but we have information else-
where of what they actually did.

It was still the policy of the Lord Superior to exhaust,
in the special competition between Baliol and Bruce, the
question between the nearer descendant by the younger
daughter, and the more remote by the elder, before enter-
ing on the claims at large. And the first question was,
By what law should the question be tried ? By the Im-
perial, meaning the civil or Roman law, or by the laws
and customs of England or Scotland?^ We shall now
see how the scheme of the hundred and four arbiters was
worked. King Edward put the question to his own
twenty-four, not collectively, but personally, in succession,
as the votes are taken when the House of Lords sits as a
criminal court, presided over by the Lord High Steward.
None would admit the imperial law — ^any reference to
that system always enraged the friends of the common
law in England — and those who might think otherwise
felt it prudent to keep their views out of sight. Most of
the referees were quite clear that in an English court they
could proceed by no other than English law ; and a few
sought refuge in the unmeaning compromise, that the law,
both of England and Scotland^ should rule wherever these
agreed with each other. The next question was, Whether
there was any specialty in the rank or dignity of this
kingdom of Scotland that should exempt it from being

-- •

^ *' An per le^es Imperiales sett per leges et consuetudines rfgni
Anglise vel regni Scotiae ? "

144 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

adjudicated upon like the other tenures of the realm? and
all answered that there was not On these two questions
King Edward's own council of twenty-four were alone
consulted. '* Those of Scotland/' as the persons selected
by Bruce and Baliol were termed, had no opportunity of
recording their opinion on these, wliich of all the questions
put were the most eminently national in their character.
Yet it was so managed that they too should appear to
have had a voice. It was put to the claimants, Baliol
and Bruce, and to the eighty of Scotland selected by
them, whether they could show any cause why the king-
dom of Scotland— a fief of the King of England — should
be treated differently from earldoms, baronies, and other
tenures. Under nice distinctions in the ways of putting
the questions, the broad fact can be distinctly traced that
the twenty-four of England were advisers or referees of
the supreme judge, Edward himself, as to the judgment
to be given, while the eighty of Scotland were merely the
advisers of the two claimants as to the position they
should take up as litigants — what they should admit, and
what they should dispute. Accordingly the eighty are
not heard in answer to the questions put ; the competitors,
Baliol and Bruce, give the answers. These are not very
emphatic, but import generally the readiness of both to
submit to such decision as their Lord Superior may adopt,
one point only being urged with some emphasis — that the
kingdom of Scotland cannot be partitioned among several
heirs like a private estate.

Having thus in a manner felt the way towards finding
a principle, by deciding what law it was to be sought for
in, matters were ripe for fixing the principle itself; and
the next question was, AVhether the nearer descendant of
the younger daughter, or the more remote descendant of
the elder daughter, should be preferred? The answer,
very neatly and distinctly put, was, that the progeny (A
the elder must be exhausted before that of the younger
liad any claim. This, as a necessary condition of a pure
law of hereditary succession, rules to this day ; and it is
likely that the deliberations of the august body who
assisted the Lord Superior did much to clear up the rules

MANAGEMENT OF THE REFEREES, 1:^92. I45

of succession as an exact science. On the political bear-
ing of the decision, however, the important specialty is
that, as in the preliminary question, the English assessors
only were consulted.

Taking the principle so established for his rule, King
Edward then decided that, as between the two, and as the
pleadings stood, John de Baliol had a preferable title to
Robert de Bruce. It was then put to the eighty of Scot-
land if they had anything to say against this judgment.
The forty selected by Baliol, when asked one by one, of
course assented to it. When it came to the turn of those
selected by Bruce, the first on the list — the Bishop of
Glasgow — ^made some faint demur ; he was in favour of
the claims of Bruce, yet, in the shape in which it stood,
he had nothing to say against the judgment ; and the rest
followed him in assenting. In fact, the decision did not
put Bruce out of court or find for Baliol, since all parties
were yet to be heard before a final decision.* What after-
wards occurred may account for Bruce's acquiescence in
the interim decision — he had more to hope for in pleading
his cause before the Lord Superior than in contradicting
him. The material feature in this discussion is, that
while it went forth that the question of the succession was
remitted to a hundred and four arbiters, eighty of them
being of Scotland and twenty-four of England, the eighty
of Scotland were allowed no opportunity of giving cither
a judgment or an opinion on any of the great questions
brought to a decision.

Let us now look to the pleadings so far as they have
come down to us, and try what instruction may be found
in them. They are not to be confounded with the

^ ** Quod secundum petitiones et rationes ex utraque parte Robert!
et Johannis monstratis, quas idem rex coram se et consilio suo cum
magna diligentia inspici et examinari fecit, Robertus de Bfus non
hdbuit jus in sua petitione ad regnum Scotiae secundum fonham et
modum petitionis suae. Et similiter dictum fuit dicto Johamii de
Balliolo per praedictum dominum regem, quod quoad petitionem suam,
idem dominus rex non potest ei respondere ad plenum, quousque alii
petentes jus ad regnum prsedictum Scotiae, comm eo in curia sua
fiierunt exauditi."

VOL. II. K

146 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

genealogical statements in which the competitors set forth
their claims. These are precise and formal, while the
pleadings in which each claimant siij)ports his own case
to the prejudice of the others are argumentative and dis-
cursive.

By far the most illustrious of these competitors — ^taking
them by the estimate of the prevailing court politics of
the day — was Florence, Count of Holland. He was the
son of that William of Holland who is in the roll of the
emperors, though his empire was short and uneasy. The
emperor's wife was a Guelf, and otherwise he was connected
with those houses which professed to derive their origin
from a Roman stock, and looked on the Norman claim-
ants — and their master, the Plantagenet himself — as
modem upstarts, the representatives of successful Norse
pirates. The connection of Florence with the Scottish
royal family differed from that of every one of the other
claimants. Ada, a daughter of Henry the son of King
David, and consequently a sister of William the Lion, was
married to a previous Florence, Count of Holland. Their
great-grandson was William the Emperor, the father of
Florence, the claimant.

The law of primogeniture had become so far distinct
that the descendant of a sister of King William must yield
to the claims of his own descendants, unless there were
some specialty for excluding them, and the Count of
Holland would leave the stage on the mere announcement
of his claim, were it not that he attempted to found on
some such specialties.

These are curious as exemplifying feudal usages, and
they are in themselves peculiar enough materially to vary
the monotony of the other claims.

He maintained that Earl David had committed felony,
and that his descendants could not succeed to any right
through him, being tainted by that remorseless ban of the
English law— corruption of blood. As it was put in the
pleading by J. de Wossemarmut, the attorney for the
Count: ^*The before-named John de Balliol, Robert de
Brus, and John de Hastings can demand no right to
the realm of Scotland through the before-named David,

THE COUNT OF HOLLAND'S CLAIM, 1292. I47

for this same David was a felon, as in respect of homicides,
robberies, and arsons of towns and houses : and with ban-
ner displayed evilly and disloyally, the castles of his lord
the King of England besieged, took, and levelled." The
pleadings that have come down to us give no further clue
to the occasion of these hostile acts by the Earl David
against the King of England ; and from the tenor of his-
tory we must infer that David's felony was his fighting against
England under his brother, William the Lion, before the
Treaty of Falaise. But, for a reason shortly to appear,
something more was necessary to open to the Count of
Holland a title to that which could not go to Earl David's
representatives. He entered this additional plea: Earl
David had solemnly renounced his right of succession to
the crown — had renounced it into the hands of his brother
King William, in presence of the assembled Estates, and
had seen it transferred to his sister Ada, the ancestress of
the Earl of Holland. The feudal system discountenanced
gratuitous renunciations. Its principle throughout was a
doctrine of equivalents, and that any owner of a possession
or prerogative had simply given it away, was a point not
to be easily made out to the prejudice of his heirs. In
this transaction, however, there wa$ an equivalent In
consideration of the chances abandoned for him and his,
he received an estate in possession, which was yet en-
joyed by the descendants of Earl David's three daughters
— Baliol, Bruce, and Hastings. This estate the foreign
attorney for the Earl of Holland calls Gharirache ; it may
now be identified as the district of the Garioch in Aber*
deenshire, which is known to have been a domain belong-
ing to Earl David's descendants.

Among many arguments stated against this plea, one does
credit to the forensic subtlety of the day : the Count refuted
his case by the mere statement of it. His ancestress Ada
could only have right of succession as the sister of Earl
David, and if he was a felon, his felony excluded his .sister
as well as his children. Then if Earl David sold his birth-
right for this estate in Aberdeenshire, he sold what had
already gone from him, and whoever might profit by the
felony, the Count of Holland precluded himself from plead-

148 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

ing it. To this it was rejoined that the transaction occur-
red before the felony, and hence the reason for plead-
ing it

The Count had still farther and equally remarkable
matter to state. He said the settlement of the crown on
Ada and her descendants was adjusted in something very
like a full parHament. " The said King William caused to
be assembled all his baronage of Scotland, as well of
bishops, abbots, and priors, as earls, barons, and other
substantial men of the land. . . . And these the said
king ordained, provided, and established, that, if he should
die without heir of his body begotten, or if the heirs from
him issuing should decease without heirs from them issuing,
then they should hold Ada, his sister, as their lady, if she
should be living; and if she should be dead, the heirs from
her issuing." Thereafter the magnates assembled ditl
homage, and swore fealty to Ada accordingly.

Baliol and Hastings of course denied this transaction ;
but, providing, as litigants well advised do, for its possibly
being true, they said it went for nothing — it was a mere
intimation to the tenants on the domain. If William had
no power in his own person to alter the succession, these
tenants on the domain could not give him such a power.
So is met the only reference in the pleadings to the rights
of the people of Scotland or of their representatives.

The pleadings of the illustrious competitors are not
exempt from the prevailing suspicion that attaches to the
statements of litigants generally. Almost every litigant
exaggerates his case, and even as to the facts, if they are very
telling and are ill-supported, it is necessary often to be scep-
tical. Most people will, perhaps, doubt the Earl of Hol-
land's story, but some also have doubted, though with less
provocation, whether Bruce adhered to truth in maintain
ing as he did that Alexander II., when afraid of dying
childless, named him as his heir, and had the nomination
confirmed by parliament. Upon this strong plea Baliol
retaliated by charging Bruce with treason against the queen,
in that he had taken up arms against her, and actually be*
lieged and taken the Castle of Dumfries.

Bruce could refer to instances of collateral succession,

PROPOSED PARTITION, 1292. 1 49

the latest and most distinct being that of Donald Bane 5
but here his adversary had a story to give which would
be very likely to tell with the Lord Superior. No doubt
Donald Bane did usurp the throne left by his brother
Malcolm, but Duncan, the son of Malcolm, went forth-
with to William the King of England as Lord Superior of
Scotland. On Duncan's death there was a second usurpa-
tion by Donald, but again King William, as Lord Superior,
came to the rescue, ejected Donald by force, and placed
the rightful heir, Eilgar, on the throne ; and so had the
succession ever since been kept in its proper line under
the rule of the Lord Superior.^

As the pleadings wear towards a conclusion, they have
a tendency to break off from the great national question
at issue, into the pressing of secondary personal claims
and interests, the discussion of which yet throws some
light on the political ideas and feudal notions of the day.
As the tendency of the proceedings towards pure primo-
geniture becomes clear, and the other suitors see that this
points to Baliol, they begin to devise plans for a share of
the inheritance. Certain feudal estates both in England
and Scotland belonged to the crown of Scotland, and
these were divisible among heiresses, and should be in-
herited in shares by tlie descendants of Earl David's three
daughters.

One of the claimants carried this hint a great way fur-
ther. Whether it were Baliol, the distant descendant ot
the elder, or Bruce, the nearer descendant of the younger,
who succfeeded, John of Hastings, the descendant of the

' These pleadings are taken from the fragments printed by Sir
Francis Palgrave in his Documents and Records illustrating the His-
tory of Scotland, who, conscious that the assertions about the active
interposition of William Rufus, as Lord Superior, were falsehoods,
makes this apology for the production of them : ** Some might be
acquainted with the events from written memorials ; to others they
were known by general tradition or recollection. Baliol quoted them
as he understood them, and as they were universally understood in
Scotland." — Introduction, Ixxxvi. There is no doubt that in Scot-
land at that time, reasonably or unreasonably, nothing that might
impart any right of interference by the King of England in the afiain
of the country was either ** understood " or tolerated.

150 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

third daughter, must be postponed to either. He there-
fore pleaded that the estate — namely, the kingdom of
Scotland — should be broken up and divided among the
representatives of the heiresses. Bruce had at first con-
tended that Scotland was a sovereignty and indivisible,
but he now found it expedient to amend his claim, and
put in for his third part of the succession, thus making
common cause with Hastings. He was met by an objec-
tion not applicable to Hastings — his pleading was incon-
sistent ; for whereas he had founded his original claim on
the assertion that Scotland was a sovereignty and indi-
visible, he now asserted it to be partible, and claimed his
share. It would be an utter misunderstanding of the
spirit of these pleadings to suppose that Bruce was taunted
with this as anything to be ashamed of. His change of
position was as natural as the tactic of the litigant, who,
having claimed the sum total of a fund, is content in the
end to take a dividend of it. BalioFs objection to the
entering of such a plea was purely technical : and Bruce
held against him that it is every suitor's privilege to put
\n whatever plea is for his advantage, unless there be an
absolute rule of practice against him; and here there
could be no such rule, for when he pleaded the indivisi-
bility he was entering a general claim to the sovereignty
of Scotland without reference to the claims of others, but
now his plea of divisibility was put in by him as a party to
a litigation in which Baliol was the one party, and he the
other.

The Lord Superior seems to liave heard these and other
such pleas with patience — indeed to have liked them, for
they were gradually breaking down the old historic asso-
ciations of a separate sovereignty, and preparing for the
absorption of Scotland into the realm of England. From
this point the pleadings for Baliol are that Scotland,
though subject to the superiority of the King of England,
yet is a Sovereignty; and he rebuts all comparison be-
tween it and several estates referred to as having been
divided among heiresses. And here the tone of Baliol's
pleading has in it a touch of dignity, as supporting some
remnant of separate sovereignty for Scotland, while the

PROPOSED PARTITION, 1292. ISI

Others seek to remove the last shred of it. Thus, as
showing tne separate sovereignty of Scotland, Baliol sets
forth thai one who had committed felony in England flee-
ing to Scotland could not be apprehended at the instance
of the English authorities; to which Hastings makes
answer, that if such things did occur, they were but an
abuse. ^

^ ''To the demand by Sir John de Hastings of the third part of the
kingdom of Scotland, because that he springs from the third daughter
of David, and the kingdom of Scotland is held of our lord the King of
England, and because that there never was a king of Scotland anointed
or crowned ; — Sir John de lialiol maketh answer, that although the
kingdom of Scotland is held of our lord the King of England, never-
theless, before the Incarnation of our Lord, and always since, the
land of Scotland has been held as a kingdom by kings who have there
governed the realm, and by the Church of Rome have been king
named and for king held, as also by all kings of Christendom ; and
royal dignity had, and justice in their land did unto all who of Scot-
land were. And besides this, he says that the castles, burghs, or
towns of Scotland, do not make the king, nor confer the royal dig-
nity, but it is the royal dignity that makes the king ; castles, towns,
and burghs, and all other things which in the said kingdom are, [are]
unto this royal dignity appendant ; the which dignity is one [and]
entire, and tne highest lordship in any land where kings do reign.
And since that castles, cities, and burghs and towns, [are] annexed to
this royal dignity, — without the which things it cannot be maintained,
— ^just as the principal is non-partible, [so is] neither the accessar}' nor
the thine; which unto the principal appertains.

"And as to that there is no king anointed or crowned, the said Sir
John de Baliol maketh answer, — tnat the anointing of a king or the
crowning of a king is only the sign of a king, what he ouglit to be.
And this appears in every crown of a king, which is round, and so
signifies perfection ; and the four flowers of the crown, each has a
signification in itself: the flower in front signifies justice, the flower
behind might ; and of the other two flowers, the one signifies tem-
perance, and the other prudence. And so the crown does not make
the king, but it is an emblem, as before is said.

** Besides this, he says that there are many kings who are reigning
who are not crowned, as the Kings of Spain, the King of Portingalc,
the King of Savcme, and the King of Vaxen, who hold their kingdom
of the King of Almaine, as also the King of Arragon ; the which all
hold their kingdoms as non-partible. And like as in the time of our
lord the King now reigning, the younger brother of the King of Arra-
gon demanded as against the king, his brother, part of the kingdom
of Arragon ; and because that he would [not] do him the right he de-
manded, he «?nt his messengers to the King of France, and to our
lord the King of England, and to the King of Spain, and to severa]

152 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

The claims of the heirs parceners, as they have to call
themselves, are urged with all the pertinacity natural to
litigants fighting for valuable possessions. They go into
intricacies of feudal principle, through which it would
haidly be instructive here to follow them, but it is easy to
see that these pleadings must contain a great treasure of
thirteenth-century practice for the use of the conveyancer
and real-property lawyer. What confers a strange interest
on the selfish squabble, and the array of technicalities and
pleadings called out by it, is that there is no more allusion
to the rights of the community of Scotland, or the way in
which a decision may affect them, than there need be in
any private litigation. They have no more place in the
question than the tenants on an estate while the settle-
ments are disputed. So far as one can gather from the
terms of the documents, it never seems to have occurred
to the greedy litigants themselves, or their astute technical
advisers, that there was a fierce, self-willed people, nour-
ished in independence and national pride, who must be
bent or broken before the subtleties and pedantries of the
Lord Superior's court could be of any avail. Totally un-
conscious they seem also to have been that the intricate
technicalities which dealt with a sovereign independent
state as a mere piece of property in search of an owner,
formed an insult never to be forgiven, whatever might be
the cost of repudiation and vengeance. We cannot show
how fiir any rumour of the proceedings before the Lord
Superior penetrated into Scotland. We can only under-
stand that as yet there was nothing done that could or
need be resisted. . Action would come when the pressure
of Norman rule should tell the people that they had got
new masters.

The great cause, as we have seen, began in May 1291 ;
we are now in November 1292. The Lord Superior

other kings, of whom each sent him word by his own messenger, that
a kingdom ought not to be divided ; and all the kings united, ant),
unto this agreed. Wherefore it seemeth unto him, that this matter
ought much to work for him in this case." — Rishangcr, p. 339-342.
This is a mere characteristic fragment of a long pleading.

WINDING UP, 1292. 153

seems to have felt that the time had come for a conclu-
sion. There is evidence of quick work ; all the competi-
tors, save the descendants of Earl David, appear with-
drawing their claims as if by a simultaneous vote, though
there was doubtless much dealing with them to get them
out of the way at the right time. Before judgment, two
questions were put to the assemblage, the which, as the
Great Roll succinctly tells, brought out answers to the
effect that in this question the estate was not divisible,
and the descendants of the elder sister must be exhausted
before those of the younger have a title. In the fuller
accounts of the affair, however, we find that King Edward
got answers to four questions from the eighty of Scotland,
though we do not see, as in the earlier stage, in what form
they were rendered. The first was, Whetiier the kingdom
was partible ? and they answered that it was not.

The second was, Whether the estates belonging to the
crown were partible? and the answer was, that if they
were within Scotland they were not, if out of Scotland
they might be.

The third was. Whether earldoms and baronies were
partible in Scotland ? and they answered, that earldoms
were not, as had been found in the succession to the
earldom of Athole, but baronies were understood to be
partible.

The fourth question was more general. If the kingdom
was not partible, and so should fall to the descendants of
the eldest, was it consistent with practice to make some
provision for the younger daughters or their descendants ?
The answer was, that there had been no opportunity to
provide for such a case in the succession to the crown ;
but in the succession to earldoms it was usual for tlie
eldest, who took the estate, to make some provision for
the younger — but this was matter of grace, not of right.

To complete the history of the great cause it is neces-
sary to give these last particulars, because they are con-
tained in documents evidently authentic ; but it would be
satisfactory to know more than these documents tell of the
spirit in which th^y were put and answered.

On tlie Monday after the Feast of St Martin, in No^

154 ADJUSTMENT OF. THE SUCCESSION.

vember, there was a great assemblage in the Castle of
Berwick to hear the Lord Superior's judgment, wliich, as
all by this time must have well known, was in favour of
Baliol. It was a correct judgment according to the law
of hereditary descent as now established, Jind probably
the full consideration which the case received may have
done mucli to settle the rule of primogeniture for after-
times.

There was still business to be done. The new vassal
had to do homage, and instructions had to be issued for
his investiture in his fief. Xbese operations are almost
hidden in a procession of formalities, devised for the pur-
pose of placing the result of the momentous process be-
yond any possibility of question or cavil. A piece of
business had to be adjusted in the winding-up, small in
itself, yet holding a significant meaning. The fees to be
paid to the Lord Chamberlain for the King of Scotland's
homage had to be adjusted. By an ordinance recorded
in the Great Roll it was fixed at twenty pound, — the
double of an earl's fee. Thus, often as we find mention
of a king of Scots doing homage for something or other,
there was no precedent for what he must pay in doing
homage for the kingdom of Scotland.^ And this is in
harmony with all the proceedings before the Lord Supe-
rior. Their character, as ordinary feudal usages turned
to the accomplishment of a new object for which there
were no set precedents, is sustained throughout.

There was abundance of further technical procedure in
the winding up, but we have now reached the result, and
the further formalities make no part of the story. It
would not be very instructive to recapitulate them ; and
in fact, as they are all on parchment, an account of them
would be about as uninteresting as an abridgment of any
set of title-deeds. The tiresome uniformity of the written
documents is varied by one small but significant piece of
material work. The seal used by the guardians was
broken into four pieces, which were put into a leather bag

^ ** Ratione homagii quod idem rex Scotise fecit regi Anglise pro
regno Scotiap..'^

INVESTITURE OF KING JOHN, 129?. ISJ

and deposited in the Treasury of England. It is set forth,
with the solemnity which attends the whole process, that
there were two reasons for this — the one was to obviate
questions which might arise about the date or validity
of writs, if the seal of the guardians were in existence
after the appointment of a King ; the other was to pro-
vide an additional token or testimony of the establish-
ment of the King of England's feudal superiority over
Scotland.^

* If the Author shall conic under the reproach of having gone with
tedious minuteness into the particulars and technicalities of this dis-
cussion, he has to say that great litigations — causes cUkhres^ as they
are called — are admitted to be instructive chapters in the history of
human affairs ; and it would be difficult to nnd a more important
cause than the one of which the account is just concluded. As to the
authorities for this account, the staple is of coarse the Magnus Rotulus
Scotise in the Foedera : this is aided by papers in the Rotuli Scotiae
and in the Ragman Rolls, edited for the ^annatyne Club. A con-
siderable amount of new material is poured in by Sir Francis Pal-
grave, in his * Documents and Records illustrating the History of
Scotland, and the Transactions between the Crowns of Scotland and
England, preserved in the Treasury of Her Majesty's Excheauer.*
Of all that has been contributed, to our knowledge, of the affidr, now-
ever, since the Great Roll was first published by Rymer, by far the
most important contribution recently appeared in the third volume of
the Chronicles of the Monastery of St Albans, in the Collection of
Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the
Middle Ages, published under the direction of the Master of the
Rolls. Luce the two previous volumes from the muniments of the
same establishment, known as Thomas of Walsingham*s History, this
volume has been edited by Mr Riley; and all who have occasion to
use it must feel grateful to him, not only for the important documents
brought to light by him, but for the assistance afforded by him for
fully understanding their import and their connection with what was
previously known.

He brings home the collecting of these materials to Walter of Rish-
anger, a distinguished monk of St Albans. If he i? right in this, the
documents were preserved by one who was no friend to the Scots side
in the great controversy ; for Walter was retained by King Edward to
plead his cause against Scotland before the Pope, and we shall have
liereafter to come across his handiwork. (See Introduction to the
Chronicle of Rishangcr, printed by the Camden Society.) Whoever
preserved the documents, they are an immense addition to the con-
tents of the Great Roll, and let out many significant particulars not
to be found there. Among these is the very notable fact that on the
<|aestion of homage the community of Scotland spoke out, though not

156 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

For instance, the fact of the doing of homage is very
articulately set forth in a notarial instrument duly attested ;
and then, to give additional strength to this, there is the
narrative of onlookers who saw the ceremony, and reported
what they paw. The new King of Scotland, King John,
has to sipi a statement — a sort of affidavit — tliat he per-
formed his homage for his kingdom of Scotland, and per*
formed it willingly, and in honest faith that it was justly
due to the King of England as Lord Superior of Scot-
land.*

The new king now went to Scone to be solemnly in-
augurated on the Stone of Destiny, after the manner of
the kings of Scotland. He brought with him a document
or warrant from his Lord Superior, authorising the cere-

to the purpose, in the Ix)rd Superior's judgment (see j). 121). Many
other instructive particulars — ^including the information, in the last
sentence of the text, about the reason for breaking the Great Seal — are
to be found solely in Rishanger*s coUcGtion. Altogether, it ii dear
that the pleadings and the miscellaneous documents connected with
the great cause must have been \'ery voluminous. A great bundle
of the pleadings has come to us from Rishanger, yet they show that
there was abundance more. Sir Francis Palgrave gives portions of
the pleadings different from those preserved by Rishan^r — not in-
consistent with them, but belonging to a different stage m the great
cause.

* The Norman scribe or conveyancer who drafted this document
found a difficulty, and was perhaps proud of the way in which he got
over it The practice of authenticating business documents by seal
had then taken root in England. It came into Scotland, too, among
the Normans, but afterwards dropped out of tise, yielding to the
simple si^ature in writing. In England, however, the practice grew
and flounshed so healthily, that at this day, as many people know,
there are several kinds of documents of the most important kind,
public and private, which would be utterly worthless without having
on them a wafer or a piece of circular paper pasted on to represent
the seal of the person who. signs. The shape of the seal, however,
which was to attest King John of BalioPs affidavit of his homage was
a more serious affair. Whether the old seal had been yet broken up
or not, it was not a suitable one for the occasion, and there was as yet
no new seal with the eifigy of King John. The plan adopted, after
due consideration, was to use King John's private seal, as Sir Johan
de Baliol, and to narrate how, in the emergency, that plan was
adopted. ** En (esmonie de ceste chose, je ay mis a cest escrit mon
seal, que je ay use jesqi;es en cea, pur ceo que je ne avoy uncore autre
«eal fet desouz title e noun du Roy." — Rishanger, 368.

INVESTITURE OF KING JOHN, 1292. 1 37

mpny to be performed, and certifying him as the proper
person on whom it should be performed. He was en-
throned accordingly on the 30th November 1292. There
was still a step wanting to satisfy his master. Homage
had been taken of him at various stages of the process ;
it was now desirable tliat he should render it as an invested
king, and he did so accordingly on the 26th of December
at Newcastle, where King Edward received him. He was
now sent back to his people, as thoroughly complete a
vassal king as the technical skill of the Norman jurists
could make him ; and his was doubtless deemed the lot of
a fortunate and happy man. In that brilliant chivalry —
that group of gay adventurers who, unburdened by nation-
ality or other serious creeds, were following fortune wher-
ever they cojild find it — he had drawn the foremost prize
going ; but it only cast him into a ^ea of troubles. It was
plain from the first that his people would not bear the rule
of a servant of Edward. In the society he had left behind
him, no one dared speak of anything but homage and the
rights of the Lord Paramount Among the people now
surrounding him these were terms not to be endured, and
he was far away from his master and protector. He was
thwarted in the selection of his officers, and had to strug-
gle with all the difficulties which subordinates can throw
in the path of an unwelcome master. He does not seem
to have been a man of much ability — indeed he is liberally
termed a fool by friends as well as foes — ^but his position
was one in which courage and ability might have only made
mischief. It was said at the time that he was in tettor for
his safety; and one contemporary writing from the English
side compares the poor simpleton to a lamb among
wolves.*

^ In the St Albans Annals, attributed to Rishanger, who, for the
reasons already mentioned (p. 155, note), had means of knowing what
was going on, there is a lively enough notice of King John's reception :
**Scoti autem, volentes nolentes, iUum ut regem animo turgenti mo*
leste suscepurunt. Illicoomnes famulos suos de stia noiitia et natione
tummoverunt, et alios, ignotos sibi, ad sui ministrationem deputarunt
Regium nomen ei s^c imposuerunt, non spontanea voluntate, sed
eoacti, et regium omcium ei penitus abstulerunt, dicentes, mutve,

1S8 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

It happened that individual members of the community,
in the ordinary pursuit of their personal aims, were the
means of rousing the exasperation of the body at large, by
bringing home to them in a palpable shape the national
degradation. The rumour had gone forth that the king's
courts were no longer supreme — there was an authority
above them, which could correct their decisions and remedy
their acts of injustice. This was glorious news to dis-
appointed litigants. It was desirable, too, that as speedily
as possible the Lord Superior should exercise his power
as the protector and redresser.

The first to appeal unto Caesar was Roger Bartholomew,
a burgess of Berwick. A certain Marjory Moigne, a widow
in Berwick, took proceedings before the Court of the Cus-
todes at Exlinburgh on the following statement : — She had
lent to William the goldsmith a hundred and eighty pounds
sterling, the property of her boys. The goldsmith having
died, Roger, as his executor, had taken possession of his
estate, but had not repaid the widow. There was a
counter-plea, that the goldsmith's estate had a claim for
the maintenance of the boys, and that to the rest of the
fund the widow had helped herself by taking it out of the
executor's strong-box. On these counter-pleas a litigation
was built, the result of which was disa.strous to Roger ;
and it was only in human nature that he should seek a
remedy, without being hindered by considerations about
the sacrifice of his country's independence.^ King Exl-
ward, at Newcastle, named a council to hear the case.
King John protested that there existed a treaty providing
that no native of Scotland should be required to plead to

' Nolumus hunc regnare super nos.' Il!e autem, simplex et idiotii,
quasi mutuset elinguis comperta superstitiosa seditione Scotorum, non
apeniit os suum ; timuit enim feralem rabiem illius popuH, ne eum
fame attenuarent, aut carcerali custotlia manciparent. Sic degebat
inter eos anno integro, quasi agnus inter lupos. — Annates AngUse et
Scotiae, 371.

^ '* Placita apud Edenburgh coram custodibus regni Scotie die
Tovis in festo S. Luce Evang. Anno Dom. MCC. nonagesimo primo.**
Under this title the whole case will be found in Ryley s Pleadings in
Parliament, p. 146.

CAUSES APPEALED TO ENGLAND, 1292-93. 1 59

any suit, civil or criminal, out of the realm. King Edward
said that, supposing there were such an obligation, it could
not affect his right to control the judges he had himself
appointed ; but he was resolved to remove all possibility of
mistake, and, speaking fairly out, proclaimed that he was
determined to hear all appeals from the country of which
lie was Lord Superior. Though a thoroughly practical
man, not to be turned from his purpose by parchment, it
seems to have been felt by Edward as undesirable that
there should remain in writing an agreement like the
Treaty of Brigham, by which, in many shapes, he had be-
come bound to observe the independence of Scotland, and
had especially engaged that no Scotsman could be cited
as a litigant into England. Accordingly, he extracted
from Baliol a discharge and renunciation of this treaty for
himself, his kingdom, his heirs, and every conceivable
being supposed to have an interest in its provisions.
While they were at such work, Edward's lawyers extended
the cancelling to every kind of document known to exist,
or afterwards turning up, in which there might be any con-
dition that could by possibility be pleaded against the exer-
cise, in any circumstances, of his sovereign superiority.
This discharge, for greater security set forth both in
Latin and French, is the last in " The Great Roll of Scot-
land." The elaborateness with which it raises a verbal
fortification against every possible argument, plea, or
quibble, that might be brought against the claims and acts
of the Lord Superior, makes it a curious document ; and
the study of it might be instructive to a sharp attorney
accustomed to prepare obligations for holding people to
bargains which they may possibly repudiate as iniquitous.
The pecuniary squabble among the burgess families in
Berwick thus expanded into a critical question of national
politics. It was followed by another, which, standing
alone, would have been of infinitely greater moment, since
it concerned rights of succession connected with the earl-
dom of Fife. It involved complex points, both in pedigree
and legal formality, grounded on a claim by Macduff, the
younger son of the last earl, who, as against his grand-
nephew, demanded certain lands which he said his father

l60 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

had given him. The real importance of the case lay in its
finding it way to the Estates of Parliament. The sitting
began at Scone on the loth of February 1 293. The judg-
ment was against Macduff, who appealed to the Lord Supe-
rior. With these two cases in hand, a sort of rule of court
was framed for hearing appeals from Scotland. It in-
volved two remarkable conditions — that in such appeals
the King of Scotland was to be cited, and must attend as a
party ; and that the appellant, if successful, should have
damages or reparation for the injustice done to him in
the court below.

It is easy at this stage to see that, whatever the ulti-
mate views of King Edward may have been, his im-
mediate object was to subject his new vassal to deep
humiliation.

On the Macduff case the King of Scots was cited to
appear before the high court of the Parliament of England
on the day after the Feast of Trinity, in the month of
March. He did not appear; he was afraid to set off on
such an errand. He was again cited to appear in October.
Meanwhile, in August, there was a meeting of the Estates
at Stirling — a meeting which may be called the second
Parliament of King John.^ The business it transacted, so
far as we have it on record, related to personal feudal
claims. They were of considerable territorial importance.
Two of them — ^the one affecting the domains of the house
of Bruce, the other those of the house of Douglas — were
appealed to King Edward and his Parliament It is in
the shape taken by the appeals already entered that poli-
tical importance and historical interest centre.* King
John obeyed the second summons, going up to England
with instructions, whether they were communicated to him
by the assembly at Stirling, or otherwise. We See by the

^ See the proceedings of the two meetings, during John's short reign,
in the first volume of the Scots Acts» p, S^et seg,

' A good account of the tliree litigations in which the houses of
Macduff, Bruce, and Douglas were interested, is given by Lord Hailes,
who seems to have taken a professional interest in them as ft genear
logical lawyer Annals, i. 274 ef seq.

CAUSES APPEALED TO ENGLAND, 1292-93. I6I

record of the proceedings that he was personally present^
As the historians of the English Parliament put it : " This
King of Scotland was obliged to stand at the bar like
a private person and answer to an accusation brought
against him for denying justice." ^ A legislative assem-
bly, whether patrician or democratic, can always be trusted
with the execution of an oppressive or insulting policy
towards a rival or dependent community ; and on this
occasion Edward was well served — too well perhaps.
The King of Scots was treated throughout as a contuma-
cious litigant, failing in respect to the worshipful court.
He stood, however, to the policy to which he had been
driven in Scotland. Acknowledging himself the vassal of
the King of England, he said he yet dared not commit
himself to the matter in hand, or any other affecting the
kingdom of Scotland, without consulting the Estates of the
kingdom ; and when closer pressed, he repeated the assur-
ance.* The court then found the party before them con-
tumacious, and guilty of contempt of an aggravated kind,
since it was cast at the sovereign who had conferred
on him the dignity and authority he enjoyed. He was
not only to be subjected in damages to the appellant, but
to a special punishment for contumacy. On a preamble,
which seems to say that a delinquent ought to be punished
by deprivation of the means of holding out in >vrong-doing,
it was resolved that the three principal castles in Scotland,
with the towns attached to them, and the royal jurisdiction
over them, should be seised into the hands of the King of
England until his vassal should give satisfaction for his
contumacy.* Before this parliamentary resolution passed

* ** Placita coram ipso domino rege et consilio suo ad Parliamentum
suum post festum S. Michaelis," &c. — Ryley, 157.

* Pari. Hist., i. 41.

* "Quod de aliquo regnum suum contingente non est ausus nee
potest hie respondere inconsultis probis hominibus regni sui."

* *' Juri consonum est quod quilibet puniaturin eo quod ei prebet
audadam delinquendi, consideratum est similiter, quod tria principalia
castra regni sui Scotice, cum villis in quibus eadem castra sita sunt,
cum jurisdictione regali in easdem, seisiantur in manu domini regis et
seisita remaneant quousque de contemptu et inobedientia predicta,
eidem domino regi satisfecerit."

VOL. If. L

I

162 ADJUSTMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

into a decree, King John preferred to his superior, in very
humble guise, a petition for delay, until he should consult
" les gentes de mon royalme," as he called them, promising
to report the result to the first Parliament after Easter.
The Lord Superior thought fit to grant this petition.
But these judicial proceedings were destined to be borne
down by political impulses of a more powerful kind ; and
we have no more records of the appeals against the King
and Parliament of Scotland to the King and Parliament of
England.

1 63

CHAPTER XX.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE BATTLE OF STIRLINU

EDWARD'S QUARREL WITH FRANCE—THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SCOT-
LAND — ALLIANCE BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND — THE FOUNDA-
TION OP WHAT IS CALLED THE ANCIENT LEAGUE— ITS IMPORTANCE
IN EUROPEAN HISTORY — POPULAR CONDITIONS OP ITS ADOPTiaN
ON THE SCOTS SIDE — EDWARD'S RETURN AND INVASION OF SCOT-
LAND — ^THE SIEGE OF BERWICK— BALIOL DRIVEN TO RENOUNCE
HIS ALLEGIANCE — MARCH NORTHWARDS — EDINBURGH— THE RE-
MOVAL OF THE CONTENTS OF THE ROYAL TREASURY — SCONE —
REMOVAL OF THE STONE OF DESTINY — ITS STRANGE HISTORY BEFORE
AND AFTER THE REMOVAL— THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND AN-
OTHER ACQUISITION — ITS HISTORY— ED WAR D*S CIRCUIT AND COL-
LECTIONS OF HOMAGES— APPEARANCE OP WALLACE ON THE SCENE
— WHAT IS KNOWN OF HIM COMPARED WITH THE LEGENDARY
HISTORY— HIS CAPACITY AS A COMMANDER AND ORGANISER — HOW
HE GATHERED AN ARMY— HIS VICTORY AT STIRLING BRIDGE.

At this juncture an event occurred on the Continent
momentous to Scotland, and even to Europe. It furnishes,
too, an apt warning of the futility of passing a judgment
on the political relations of nations and communities from
feudal forms and parchment records. In the records of
the court of France for the year 1294, there is an entry to
the effect that Edward of England, summoned as a vassal
to appear before his lord superior, the King of France,
having failed to obey the summons, is punished for con-
tumacy. The forms of feudal style in which this step is
recorded, are a fair rival in domineering and insulting
language with those of King Edward's scribes in the affairs
of Scotland, for France was then in one of its expansive

l64 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

transitions, and the tono of King Philip was high.* As
lord superior he peremptorily fixed the day at which his
vassal must appear before him in Paris; and he orders
and adjudges him then and there to appear, as the gravity
of the charges against him requires, to submit to the judg-
ment of his lord superior, warning him that, whether he
appear or not, justice shall take its course. The founda-
tion for this citation was a paltry squabble at Bayonne, in
which it was maintained that the British were the aggres-
sors. King Edward was too deep in such mysteries not
to know at once what his brother Philip the Fair intended.
Having Ireland, Wales, and last, Scotland, to deal with
at home, Edward's hands were full of business. He knew
that the opportunity was only too good for an attempt to
annex his French dominions to the crown of France, and
the first step to be taken was to insult him, and convert
him as speedily as possible into a contumacious vassal.
Edward let the matter take its course, and prepared for
war. He summoned a parliament for an aid, and John
Baliol, who attended, made a munificent contribution to
it — three years' rental of his vast English domains. It is
not clear whether King Edward saw through the policy
of this gift : it must have been clear to the giver that, if
he retained his crown, he must entirely lose his English
estates. He had wide domains in France too, which
might be forfeited, so that the concurrence of conditions
which had loaded him with the favours of fortune had
also heaped perplexing difficulties around him.

An embargo was issued against vessels leaving the
coasts, and nominally at least it extended to Scotland.

^ " Vobis praecipimus et mandamus, sub poenis, quas potuistis in-
currere et potestis, quatinus vicesima die instantis natalis domini,
quam vobis perempiorie Parisiis assignamus, compareatis coram
nobis, sicut debeatis el debetis, et sicut tantorum facinorum et exces-
tuum qualitas exigit et requirit, super eisdem, quorum cognatioad nos
pertinet, et prsedicta tangentibus, et quse ex eis sequi p>ossent, et
omnibus aliis, quce contra vos proponenda duxerimus, responsuri, et
juri parituri, et quod justum fuerit audituri, et eiiam recepluri. Sig-
niBcantes vobis, tenore prsesentium, quod, sive diciis die el loco
compareatis, sive non, nos nihilominus procedemus, proul debemus,
testra absentia non obstante." — Foedera (Record edition), i. 79.^

ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 1294-95. 1 65

The usual warrant for the feudal array was issued, and
the chief vassals of the crown, with the King of Scots first
in order, followed by Bruce and Comyn, were honoured
by special writs of summons.

For a bold game in Scotland here was a good oppor-
tunity, and it was not lost. In the English chronicles we
are told that, when Edward had departed on his expedi-
tion, a Parliament was held at Scone, at which all the
Englishmen holding office at court were dismissed, and a
committee of twelve members from the higher grades in
the Estates was appointed to conduct the business of
government.^ Of these transactions there is no better
evidence, but of another and more significant we have an
ample record. During the year 1295, a league, offensive
and defensive, was concluded between John, King of
Scotland, and Philip, King of France. In the record of
the negotiations, which is ver>' full, there is a specialty on
the side of Scotland which seems to give some amount of
materiality to that communitas, or community, which we
have found dispensing its influence in a shadowy and un-
certain form. On the side of Scotland, as parties to the
transaction, are announced the Prelates and Nobles, and
also the communities of the towns or burghs, called also
Universities, a term of wide use at that time, but soon after-
wards limited to the great teaching corporations.^ Hence,
attached to the stipulations for Scotland, along with those
of prelates or barons, are the seals of the burghs of Edin-
burgh, Aberdeen, Perth, Stirling, Berwick, and Roxburgh.
It is very unlikely that the transaction was completed by
any assembly that could be called a parliament. That
might have been unsafe or imprudent had it been the
constitutional arrangement for the conduct of such busi-
ness. It had, no doubt, to be so conducted that it should

* Rishanger, Hemingford, and Matthew of Westminitcr, anno

"95- . . . .

' ** Et quia regni nostri prelati quantum eis de jure licet, ac comites,

barones, et alii nobiles, nee non villarum universitates ac communi*

tales, dictos tractatus conventiones pactiones ac considemtiones ut

superius est expressum suo nomine approbaverunt et se per piesentet

obiservaiuros firmiter promiserunu" &c — Scots Acts, i. *97.

l66 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

be secret to many of the Scots themselves. Yet great
care was taken to place it on a broad popular basis.

According to a fashion of the day, the diplomatists on
both sides were eloquent in setting forth noble motives
for what they were doing. The advisers of King John
must have surely yielded to a sense of sarcasm, when they
made him express his indignation at the undutiful conduct
of the King of England to his lawful superior the King of
France — perhaps it was a faint attempt to pay oft* old
scores. This was the starting of that great policy which
had so much influence for centuries on both sides of the
British Channel — the policy of France and Scotland
taking common counsel against England. It is just pos-
sible that the preservation of Baliol's French estates,
Bailleul, X)ampierre, Helicourt, and Hemoy, may have
had some influence in reconciling him to so strong a
measure ; but what gave its real stability and power to
the league between Scotland and France was their com-
mon interest, founded on their common danger. Pro-
minent in this treaty was a royal alliance — Edward, the
son of the King of Scots, was to marry the King of
France's niece, the daughter of the Count of Anjou.
There were stipulations for matrimonial provisions, and
very carefully drawn stipulations, that Baliol's son, Ed-
ward, should really be his successor in the throne. For
the rest, King Philip engaged to protect Scotland from
English invasion, by sending an army and otherwise, and
the Scots king bound himself to break in on the borders
while Edward was engaged in the war abroad.^ This last
was a bargain for wasting, destroying, and slaying, ren-
dered in terms which sound savage through the diplomatic
formalities. The engagement was but too literally kept.
One rabble army swept the western, and another the
eastern, border counties, pillaging, destroying, and burn-
ing after the old fashion.

^ The substance of the treaty is in some measure preserved in the
Foedera (Record edition), i. 822, and in Hemingford, i. 66. The
most complete rendering of it, however, is in the first volume of the
Scots Acts (Acta Regis Johannis) p. *95,

SCOTLAND AND FRANCE. 16/

Both returned without any battle or achievement to
give the mark of soldiership to their expedition. A course
more wantonly impolitic for a country in Scotland's posi-
tion could not well be devised ; but it was a country not
only without any conspicuous leader, but deprived, by a
succession of singularly adverse incidents, of the machinery
which a nation requires for its government even in ordinary
times. Bruce, the competitor for the crown, died about
this time. His son, the father of the great King Robert,
was suspected of treating for the reversion of the rights
likely to be forfeited by Baliol; and the raids against
England seem to have been directed by Comyn, Earl of
Buchan.

It has generally surprised historians that so strong and
warlike a king as Edward should have left the French
contest a loser rather than a gainer. His fiery spirit was,
however, ruled by a deep sagacity. As emperor of all the
British Islands, with Ireland, Wales, and Scotland sub-
dued, he would achieve an eminence and power not to be
risked for the sake of straggling dependencies on the
Continent. Accordingly, he determined at present to
concentrate his powers on Scotland.

He marched northwards with thirty thousand foot-
soldiers and five thousand mounted men-at-arms.^ This
was a powerful force. The horsemen, clad in complete
mail, their actual fighting power enhanced by a supersti-
tion that they were unassailable, were then to an army
what cannon are now — they could not be too numerous.
An army, of course, required other elements, but these
never failed in full proportion to the mounted men, whose
number was ever limited by the difficulty of procuring
them. He determined to pounce upon Berwick — at once
the key of Scotland, and thp centre of its commercial
riches. He forded the river Tweed a few miles above its
mouth, and thus got his army clear of the difficulty of
crossing a river in the face of an enemy. He now marched

1 The chronicles say 4000 ; but in the diary to be presently re-
ferred to the number is 5000.— Sep S^evcpspfi's Ppcuments, &c.,
ii. 25.

1 68 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

through ground familiar to him in the conferences about
the competition. At that time we have found that he
came and went as he pleased, holding his court in the
town or the castle of Berwick as suited him ; but now the
castle or citadel was garrisoned by Scots, and even the
town resolved to resist This presumption made Edward
furious ; and a chronicler of the day who was deep in the
king's confidence, and practically concerned in his pro-
jects on Scotland, thought it worth his while to preserve
some contumelious taunts with which an audacious citizen
aggravated the monarch's potent wrath/ It received
more ardent aggravation from the burning of some ships
which had been sent for a sea attack. The town, with

^ This, as given by Rishanger, is perhaps the oldest relic of the
Lowland Scots of the day : ** Confestim unus e Scotis alta voce coepit
convitia et verba probrosa regi Anglias inferre patria lingua, — Kyng
Edward, wanne thu havest Ber^^nc, pike the ; wanne thu havest geten,
dike the * (p. 373).

In an old French chronicle the taunt is varied, and accompanied
by a hit at the personal peculiarity which gave occasion to the nick-
name Edward Longshanks —

" What wende the Kyn^ Edward
For his langee shanks,
For to Wynne Bereuykc
Al our unthankes?

Go pike it him.
And when he it have wonne
Go dike it him."

And in comment the chronicler says briefly : " Quant le bon roi Ed-
ward 01 ceste reproece taunt fist il par sa prusce qe il assailli lei
portes, et passa et conquist la ville, et occist par soun gracious poer
vynt et cink mille et sept centz.*' — Wallace Papers, 142.

Though we need not believe that these sarcasms had such an effect
in raising the fury of the king, the notoriety given to them shows that
they must have been effective, though we cannot now easily see their
point. The best testimony to their celebrity is, that Peter Langtoft
in his chronicle took them up as hits, and deliberately answered them
in the spirit of the old taunt of retaliation, that they may laugh who
win, since the pick -axe and the dyke at which the others sneered had
lyen effectual : —

** Pikit him, and dikit him, on scome said he.
He pikes and dikes in length, as him likes, how best it may be,
And thou hast for thi pikyrng, mykille ille likyng, the sothe it to se,
Without any lesynz, alle is thi hething, fallen opon the.
For scatred er thi Scottis, and hodred in ther hottes, neuer the! ne the.
Right als I rede, thei tombled in Tuede, that woned bi tiji%c."

SIEGE OF BERWICK, 1296. 169

nothing apparently but a poor earthen mound to defend
it, was taken at once. There is an awful unanimity of
testimony to the merciless use made of the victory. The
writer who knew best of all describes the king as rabid,
like a boar infested with the hounds, and issuing the order
to spare none; and tells how the citizens fell like the
leaves in autumn, until there was not one of the Scots
who could not escape left alive, and he rejoices over their
fate as a just judgment for their wickedness.^

In the town, the Flemings had a fortified establishment
called the Red House. It held out after the town was
taken, and was destroyed by firing, thirty of its defenders
being burnt within it Thus it was on the community
among whom the protection of the Lord Superior was first
sought that his vengeance first fell. There was an end of
the great city of merchant princes, and Berwick was hence-
forth to hold the rank of a common market-town, and be
conspicuous only, after the usual fate of a frontier town,
for its share in the calamities of war. The castle capitu-
lated on terms, and the garrison was spared, though the
citizens had been slain. Before leaving the place Edward
dug a deep ditch or fosse, and raised a corresponding
rampart, strengthened with stakes, on the Scots side of
the town. It was reported at the time that he had him-
self wheeled a barrow in this service. It was one of those
acts of inspiring condescension which show earnestness
and determination, and become immortalised when ex-
hibited in the service of goodness or humanity.*

A scene was enacted before he left the neighbourhood
of Berwick. His vassal Baliol, according to the chroniclers,
had been in restraint since his rather abrupt departiu'e
from England during the sitting of the parliament assem-
bled to aid the war with France. He could not, if he
would, have obeyed a summons to meet his superior ai

^ " Gens ilia nuda et ineniiis misere lacerata occubuit ; coeciderunt
quemadmodum folia arborum in autumno, nee solum superstitem in
dvitate de Scotis inventum reliquit eladius regis. Tandem suos divina
pietas victoria decoravit, Scotos inndeles caede simul et fuga dehones-
tavit'* — Rishanger, 374.

* " Ipsemet cum vehiculo terram portabat.'* — Rlshanger, 375.

170 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

Newcastle. Those who now had a stronger hold on him
than the Lord Superior, compelled him, instead of giving
attendance, to render a written renunciation of his vassal-
ship.^

This document did not reach King Edward until after
he had completed his work at Berwick. He was probably
in high spirits ; and it is on this occasion that he is said
to have uttered the sarcastic threat — " The foolish traitor,
what folly ! If he won't come to me, I must go to him." ^
King Edward marched northwards, and the next point at
which he met any difficulty was the Castle of Dunbar,
close on the sea. It had but just fallen into the hand§ of
the independence party ; and we are told that it was taken
from them, although an immense army came to the sup-
port of the garrison.^ We are further told that this army
was defeated and many prisoners taken. There evidently
was not, however, a great battle with organised troops and
known commanders pitted against each other. The Scots
seem to have been a confused mass, of whose numbers

^ The instrument announcing the renunciation of fealty must have
created unbounded ridicule among the accomplished feudal draftsmen
in King Edward's employment. It is in extravagant contrast to the
decorous documents among which it has been preserved. It is a piece
of vehement scolding, weakened by the difficulties of putting that kind
of expression into the Latin language. The conclusion is utterly in-
consistent with feudal logic. On the ground of the outrages and con-
tumelies to which he has been subjected, King John retracts homage
and fealty to King Edward, both for himself and any subjects of his
who may have committed themselves in the matter. If the homage
and fealty were the fulfilment of the King of England's rights, they
could not be retracted or withdrawn ; and there is nothing said about
their being illegal or exacted under coercion. It is easy to see that
King John had not such skilful feudal draftsmen at his elbow as those
who drew the documents in the Great RolL — Fcedera (Record edi-
tion), i. 836.

* Epigrammatic utterances by historical characters on critical occa-
sions are notoriously found, when investigated, to be standing on
slippery testimony. This saying seems to have no better testimony
than Bower's. He, however, evidently gives it unaltered in the form
in which it existed in tradition, for it is stuck into his monkish Latin
in the original French ; and, as Lord Hailes observes, he mistrans-
lates it, losing its point — Scotichron., y\. 18; Ilailes*s Annals, L
sSq.

* See Rishanger and Ilemingford.

EDWARD'S PROGRESS. I/I

very vague estimates were taken. It seems unnecessajy,
too, to repeat the names of persons of eminence casually,
and perhaps not accurately, mentioned, who then ranged
themselves on the side of Scotland. It was a brief alle-
giance, which had speedily to be revoked, and we have to
wait yet awhile ere we can fairly range the two opposite
parties — the invaders of the soil and its defenders.

On the 14th of June King Edward reached PIdinburgh,
and lived in the Abbey of Holyrood. He attacked the
castle, setting up, as we are told, three engines, which
pelted it day and night for a week before the place was
taken. The chroniclers of later times relate that he re-
moved the ancient national crown and sceptre, with the
other emblems of sovereignty. Doubtless, if such things
lay in his way, he would have carried them off. It may
be questioned, however, if Scotland had then a " regalia "
such as might befit a royal court of later times. We
know that Baliol had among his effects an article called a
crown, because afterwards, when he went to France, his
luggage was searched, and among his effects there was
found a crown of gold, which was hung up by King Ed-
ward as an offering at the tomb of Thomas h, Becket.
This does not appear, however, to have been a symbol of
ancient investiture. The spoliation was, of course, the
work of subordinates, but they acted under instructions,
and made the proper reports of their proceedings. There
has, indeed, been preserved, with the usual Norman pre-
cision, an inventory of articles which King Edward thought
it worth his while to take with him to London in three
chests, but no crown is mentioned among them, nor in.-
deed any emblem of royalty, unless it may be some articles
bearing the royal arms ; these chiefly consist of plate and
jewellery, and are more like the list in an indictment for
housebreaking than the trophies that might decorate the
triumphal procession of a conqueror.^ He went next to

* The most noticeable of the " jocalia," as they are called in the
inventory, is '*unus ciphus de ovo griffini fractus in toto argento
monittts — a griffin's egg, as it would seem, broken and patched with
silver. It is supposed to have been the egg of an ostrich, or a cocoA'

1/2 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

Stirling, where he found the castle deserted, and passed on
to St Johnstone, or Perth, where he abode three days. In
the adjoining Abbey of Scone he found something which
it was well worth his while to remove and keep, and he
either took it with him northwards or left it till his return :
this was the Stone of Destiny — the palladium of Scotland.
It was enshrined in a chair or throne, on which the kings
of Scots were wont to be crowned. Its legendary history
was, that it was the pillow on which Jacob reposed when he
saw the vision of the angels ascending and descending the
ladder, and that it was brought over by Scota, that daughter
of Pharaoh from whom the Scots line of monarchs was
descended. In terms of a prophetic couplet,^ it was its
virtue that wherever it might be placed there would the
Scots be supreme ; and it will easily be believed that the
prophecy was recalled, when in after-day^ the monarchs of
the Stewart dynasty sat on it to be crowned in West-
minster.

King Edward was a serious prince, according to the
notions of the age, and much given to relic-worship. He
chose a spot sacred by its uses, and by the presence of his
own household gods, for the reception of the great relic —
the achievement of his sword and spear. It was in the
chapel built by his father, containing the shrine of Edward
the Confessor — where his loved Queen Eleanor and his
father were buried, and where he then desired that his own
dust should be laid.^ He intended at once to enclose the
relic in a shrine, which should be the coronation chair of

nut. There Ls, however, ** una nux cum pede argentca deaurata

fracta." The removal of these tiling was so far rememl>ered as to get

into the chronicles : —

" Hie rex nc totam Scotiam fecit sibi notam,
Qui sine mensura tulit inde jocalia plura." — Scotichron., xi. 95.

1 " Ni fallat fatum Scoti, quocunque locatura
Invenient lapidem, regiure tenentur ibidem.*'

' In contemplating it in its place — which we may now do — to feel
the full effect of the scene we should for a moment restore in imagina-
tion the altar and its appendages, and lay aside for a time the low
esteem in which relics, however sacred, are in those times held."— .
Joseph Hunter's Paper on King Ed^i'ard^s Spoliations in Scotluki,
Arch. Journal, xii. 245.

REMOVAL OF THE STONE OF DESTINY, 1296. I73

the kings. At first he gave orders for a chair of bronze, then
altered his intention, and had it made in wood. Its cover
or shrine thus being a seat or throne, altered and adorned
from age to age, became the coronation chair of the kings
of England.^

That the stone was so eagerly seized by King Edward,
so tenaciously retained by his successors, and so highly
distinguished in its new place, are now the chief te5;timony
to the fact that it was an object of high reverence and
honour in Scotland. The oldest annalists evidently make
their first acquaintance with its existence when they come
to tell of its removal Whatever revelation they aflford of
its earlier history is limited to the one item, that at the
enthroning or inauguration of Alexander III. he was
solemnly placed upon " the stone " •reverently preserved
for the consecration of the kings of Scotland.*

There was, besides the use of the Stone of Destiny, an-
other sanction necessary for the completion of an ancient
Scots coronation — the presence and intervention of the

^ For instance, at the coronation of Henry IV. — ** Introducto rege,
et incathedrato sede regali super lapidem qui dicitur * Regale Regni
Scotise,' cantabatur Antiphona." — Riley, Chionica Monasterii S.
Albani, 294. In the inventory of articles received by King Ed-
vvard it is called **una petra magna supra quam reges Scotiae sole*
bant coronari.'' — Arch. Journal, xiii. 250.

' This ceremony is notable in history from the appearance and par-
ticipation in the ceremonies of a Celtic seer, see above, p. 21. From
what seems a mixture of Celtic and feudal customs, it has been sup-
posed that "the stone" came along with the old traditions of the
Irish race who ruled in Dalriada. The history of this palladium has
had its full share of skilled investigation — see in the eighth volume of
the Proceedings of the Antiquaries' Society of Scotland, * The Corona-
lion Stone, by William Skene, Esq., LL.D., Vice-President S. A.
Scot,* followed by 'Note on the Coronation Stone, by John Stuart,
Esq., LL.D., Sec. S. A. Scot.' But the chief result of all inquiries
has been to bring forth the ancient and picturesque legendary history
that accumulated over this simple stone when it became associated
with the histoid of the War of Independence. The beginning of that
history is in the pleading before the Pope by the Scots emissary,
Baldred Bi^set, to be afterwards noticed. The passage has been thus
translated from the record : *' The daughter of Pharao, King of Egypt,
with an armed band and a large fleet, goes to Ireland, and Uiere bein^
joined by a body of Irish, she sails to Scotland, taking with her the

174 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

chief of the clan Macduff. We shall presently come across
a memorable incident arising out of this ancient rite, but
it may be well to say a word about it here, where it will
give less interruption to the narrative of events. In the
age of the popular histories it was said that the Thane of
Fife and head of the clan Macduff had given such mate-
rial aid in the revolution that dethroned Macbeth and
raised King Malcolm to the throne, as to secure the un-
dying gratitude of Scotland and her royal race, manifested
in conferring on that house all its mysterious privileges.*

royal seat which he, the King of England, with other insignia of
the kingdom of Scotland, carried with him by violence to England.
She conquered and destroyed the Picts and took their kingdom ;
and from this Scota th^' Scots and Scotia are named, according to
the line —

** * A muliere Scota vodtatur Scocia tota.'

— Proceedings, ut sup.^ p. 8i.

The Stone of Destiny has been recently taken out of its case under
the seat of the coronation throne. It was found to be an oblong rec-
tangular block of limestone, a good deal worn with handling, and
bearing no engraving or inscription. For lifting it there are two
rings, one at each end, attached to it, with careful arrangements to
prevent their breaking off by the weight of the stone. The mortis-
mg is in the centre of each end — equidistant from each side, and from
the top and bottom. As it would be inconvenient, however, to hold
the rings in such a position, there is a bar or link long enough to keep
each ring clear of the upper surface of the stone. The only old de-
scription of the stone, given in an English account of Baliol*s inau-
guration, will be seen from the above to be inaccurate : ** Concavus
quidem, ad modum rotundas cathedrae confectus."— Hemingford, ad
an. 1292.

^ The privileges of the clan Macduff is one of the questions which
recent archaeologists have been loath to touch. They included *'the
right of placing the king in his chair at his coronation, the command
of the van in the king's army, and power to compound, by a sum of
money, for the accidental murder ot a nobleman or commoner by any
of them. There still remains, not far from Lindores, a stone cross
which served as a boundary between Fife and Stratheam, with an in-
scription in barbarous verses, which had such a right of sanctuary that
a murderer within the ninth dqjree of relation to Macduff, Earl of
Fife, if he could reach the cross and pay nine cows, with a heifer,
should be acquitted of the murder.** — Gough's edition of Camden's
Britannia, iv. 3. The cross had disappeared when Gordon looked
for it about the year 171 1 (Itinerarium, 170). The inscription said te
have been upon the cross, concluding with the words *'limpide

REMOVAL OF THE HOLY ROOD, 1296. 1 75

But this is only one of the many attempts to supply, from
speculation and invention, the place of lost knowledge.
It would be as difficult for us now to solve the secret as it
was for the monks of the fifteenth century.

Besides the Stone of Destiny, King Edward got posses-
sion of another movable, valuable to him as a weakening
of the enemy and a strengthening of his o\vn hand by the
possession of a potent relic : this was the celebrated Black
Rood or Holy Rood. It was a certified fragment of the
true cross preserved in a shrine of gold or silver gilt It
was brought over by St Margaret, and left as a sacred
legacy to her descendants and their kingdom, and its re-
moval was a loss to Scotland, second only to that of the
Stone of Destiny. The rood had been the sanctifying
relic round which King David I. raised the house of
canons regular of the Holy Rood, devoted to the rule of
St Augustin, at Edinburgh. The kings of Scotland after-
wards found it so convenient to frequent this religious
house that they built alongside of it a royal residence or
palace, well known to the world as Holyrood House.
The importance of such a relic to the country having the
good fortune to own it, is shown in its finding a legendary
miraculous history. As it goes. King David had gone
a-hunting into the forest of Drumsheuch, on which now
stands Charlotte Square and other parts of western Edin-
burgh. The day was the commemoration of the exalta-
tion of the cross. The king followed his sport in defiance
of the solemn admonition of his confessor, and of course
something was to come of his so doing. He followed,
unattended, a stag, which stood at bay and would have
done him deadly injury, but the sacred relic at the mo-
ment miraculously slid into his hands and the furious ani-
mal vanished.^ This relic being small and portable was

lampede labrum/' is an attempt to produce something that might
pass as an ancient unknown language, by a scribe whose use of
monkish Latin has hampered his invention. The whole will remind
the reader of the drama of ' Macduff's Cross/ one of the latest and
least successful of Scott's works.

* Liber Cartarum Sanctae Crucis, Pref. This legend is told in
Bellenden's translation of Boece (xii. 16), but not by Boece himself

176 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

reiy useful to King Inward as a sanction in the adminis*
tration of the oath of allegiance in the course of his jour-
ney. Afterwards, when he charged important persons
with breaking their oaths of allegiance to him, it was put
as an aggravation of the crime that they had been sworn
on the Black Rood.

The Holy Rood was afterwards returned to Scotland,
and was again lost at the calamitous battle of Neville's
Cross, to be told in its proper place. ^

To return to King Edward's triumphal journey. He
was in Forfarshire in the early part of July, and there, at
Brechin or Montrose, the hapless King John came to him
like a criminal, submitting to be dealt with as the con-
queror pleased. Such documents as were deemed neces-
sary to degrade and dispossess him were then drawn with
the usual care.^ He was sent in custody to England
along with his son. He was not one of those whom
Edward had any reason to fear ; and two or three years

an odd ombsion. See further the Miscellany of the Bannatyne Club,

il 13.

^ An annalist of Durham who had seen the Reformation, afler men«
tioning other spoils taken from the Scots in the battle of Neville's
Cross, says, "together with 'the Black Rood of Scotland,' so termed,
with Mary and John made of silver, being as 3rt were smoked aU over,
which was placed and set up in the pillar next St Cuthbert's shrine in
the South Alley" of Durham. — This is stated in Sanderson's Anti-
auities of the Abbey or Cathedral Church of Durham, p. 28, 29. But
there is a more correct version of it in 'A Description or Breife De-
claration of all the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs belong-
ing or being within the Monastical Church of Durham before the
Suppression,' printed by the Surtees Society. The passage looks as
if Its author had seen the Rood, which disappeared in his day no one
seems to know how. See also * St Cuthbert, with an Account of the
state in which his Remains were found upon the opening of his Tomb,'
by James Raine, M.A., p. 100. The old annalist attributes the
legend of the stag and cross to King David II., who was taken
prisoner at the battle of Neville's Cross, and for this is duly chastised
by Mr Raine, who says : "My author goes on to state that this same
David Bruce soon afterwards founded the Abbey of Holyrood in com-
memoration of the event. The truth is, that monastery was founded
alx)ve two centuries before his time." — Raine, p. 109.

' There is a difference in authorities on the date of his submission,
nmmng between the 2d and the loth of July. This is attributed to tbo
lume necessary to complete the proper formalities.

EDWARD'S PROGRESS, 1 296. 1 77

afterwards, as the result of some amicable negotiations, he
was delivered up to the representative of the Pope, who
saw him quietly settled down in his domains of Bailleul,
in France. King Edward stayed a day or two at Aber-
deen, and on the 26th of July reached Elgin, where he
finally halted. He reached Berwick on his return on the
2 2d of August^

During this journey King Edward very sedulously gar-
nered in a harvest of personal homages. Attended as he
was by his fine army, there was no help for it ; all must
obey but those who chose mart3a:dom, and homage did not
take so firm a hold on the feudal conscience as to drive it
to this extremity. Great territorial potentates and church-
men were specially sent for, others were taken as they fell
in the way. As usual, everything that ceremonial in act
and formality in parchment could do was done to make
these submissions effective. It was set forth on each
occasion, in very strong language, that the homage-doer
came forward out of a sense of duty and of his own free
will to record his allegiance. One thing is peculiar in
these homages, that no reason is set forth why homage
should be given, though, doubtless, there was a reason foi
such an omission. There is nothing said about the supe-
riority over Scotland, nor is any closer right of authority
assumed. The vassals simply give their allegiance to
Edward, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of
Aquitaine.*

^ The statements about the articles removed by King Edward are
taken from Mr Hunter's paper above referred to. The particulars
of the journey are taken from an old document brought before the
English Society of Antiquaries by Sir Ifarris Nicholas in a paper
called * A Narrative of the Progress of King Edward I. in his Inva-
sion of Scotland in the year 1296.' — Archxologia, xxi. 478 ; and
Miscellany of the Bannatyne Club, i. 271. It ends with a statement
how King Edward ** conauered and serchid the kyngdom of Scotland,
as ys aforesaid, in xxi wekys withought any more."

' The documents connected with the homage, usually called **The
Ragman Rolls," have been printed for the Bannatyne Club in a heap,
under the title Mnstrumenta Publica sive Processus super Fidelitati-
bus et Homagiis Scotorum Domino Regi Anglise factis. In the in-
troduction will be found the conjectures of the adepts, none of them
conclusive, on the etymology of the oeculiar term Ragman.

VOL. IL ' M

1/8 War of independence.

Aflcr Edward's return there is a pause, on his side at
least, as if he were waiting to see the turn of events. A
change may be noticed in die practice of drawing the
royal writs. It is not so much a change in old style or
form, as the dropping of novelties which recent occur-
rences had introduced. Ever since the great conference
at Norham began, the royal writs relating to Scotland set
forth in all ceremony his title as Lord Superior of Scot-
land. While this is dropped. King of Scotland is not
adopted, but in the writs specially addressed to the Scots
he speaks of them as those put under his government^
One of the earliest statutes passed after his return pro-
fessed to be a remedy for ecclesiastical abuses, which were
said to be rife in England as well as Scotland, and the
record of the statute is indorsed with an instruction to
transmit it to Scotland. It was clear that the intended
policy was gradually to incorporate the new acquisition
with the kingdom of England. For the internal adminis-
tration of Scotland he took some steps obviously neces-
sary for his designs. He took care that the places of
strength should be held by persons who neither owned
domains in Scotland, nor, from their descent, had an
opportunity of forming ambitious hereditary designs there.
The most notable of these w^ere Warenne, Earl of Surrey,
appointed Guardian, Hugh of Cressinghamj the Treasurer,
and Ormsby, the Justiciar. The strongholds were com-
manded and garrisoned by subjects of England equally
free of Scots influences. It is to this period that we must
assign the raising of the bulk of the oldest castles in Scot-
land. The style in which they are built, indeed, is sig-
nificantly called the Edwardian, to distinguish it from the
earlier Norman style used by the Conqueror and his fol-
lowers. As we have no distinct evidence of the persons
by whom these buildings were raised, it seems a rational

^ As in the address or proclamation oti his departure to Flanders,
beginning, *' Rex dilectis et fidelibus suis universis et singulis et aliis
quibuscunque de regno Scotiae;" a&d he expresses a hope that his
expedition will be *'pro defensione et communi utilitate popuU
regimini nostro commissi."— Foedera (Record edition), i. i8o.

WALLACE, 1296-97. 179

supposition that they were chiefly the work of the English
authorities.

The people thus at last found alien masters at their
door, and were sullen and suspicious. The foreign sol-
diers naturally conducted themselves as all military occu-
pants of a subjected country do. The results were not ol
a kind to shape themselves into particular narratives ; we
only know that there was strife and confusion throughout.
King Fxiward writes to Cressingham that all efforts must
be made to bring to justice the wicked rebels, homicides,
and disturbers of the peace with whom the land swarms,
and to crush the rebellion. For this he is required to col-
lect all the money he can raise, and to spend it His
obedience to this order for rigid taxation would do little
to allay the growing storm.

It is at this time that the far-reno>vned William Wallace
steps upon the stage. We know nothing of precedents
which might lead us on to anticipate his public history ;
he comes to do his part like any actor who may just have
figured in any other character, tragic or comic. His father
was a knight and a landowner, having the estate of EUers-
lie, in Renfrewshire. He had himself been knighted, and
was thus, by the etiquette of Norman chivalry, as well
entitled to lead armies as any noble, or even monarch, ol
his day. To which of the several races inhabiting Scot-
land his family belonged, is a question that has been
deemed interesting, since he was certainly the representa-
tive and champion of that remnant of the Saxon, or pure
Norse inhabitants of Britain, who had not yet been sub-
jected to the southern yoke. But social position was of
more weight in this matter than mere origin. He may
have been of Norman descent ; there were Wallaces scat-
tered over England, and one came in with the Conqueror.
But in reality the Normans were of the same northern
Teutonic blood as the Saxons ; and this it was that made
them in the end assimilate into that well-assorted com-
munity which has made the England of the fifteenth and
later centuries. The danger to the liberties of a country
like Scotland was among those princely Norman houses
which had domains in Scotland and England, perhaps

l80 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

also in Ireland, in France, and in Flanders. The position
of Norman William to the chiefs among his followers and
supporters had scarcely been that of sovereign and sub-
ject, in . the later acceptation of the terms. They were
all in a common adventure, and he was but the chief
adventurer. It was long ere the crown became strong
enough to widen its distance from these great houses;
and they showed the old spirit in the Barons' Wars, and
on several other occasions. Before the time we are deal-
ing with, the great bulk of the houses founded by the ad-
venturers had gravitated into a position among the mere
landed gentry or aristocracy of England ; but there were
nill a few with domains scattered over Europe which had
princely tendencies, and considered themselves entitled
to put in their lot for thrones. It was the misfortune of
Scotland at that time, that the natural representers and
leaders of the country — the nearest relations of the old
royal family — were all men of this class, and could not be
trusted with the national interests. If a family had been
living among the Scots people from generation to genera-
tion, it mattered not whether the first who pitched his
tabernacle there had come from Denmark or Friesland —
whether he had been one of the Saxons of England, seek-
ing refuge from the tyranny of William's forest-laws, or a
grandson of one of William's own followers. The inter-
ests and feelings of such a family would be in harmony
with those of the commonalty, of which they were a part ;
and it was of such a family that William Wallace came.

The later romancers and minstrels of his native land
have so profusely trumpeted his personal prowess and his
superhuman strength, that part of their eulogy has stuck
to history.* Whatever his personal strength may have

^ ** Wallace had an iron frame. His make, as he grew up to man-
hood, approached almost to the gigantic ; and his personal strength was
superior to the common run of even the strongest men." — P. F. Tytler,
vol. i. ch. ii.

Thomas Campbell sang, in unison with the old minstrels, how —

" The sword that was fit for archangel to wield,
Was light in his terrible hand."

It is believed that this sword may still be seen — in several places. The

WALLACE, 1296-97. 181

been, his achievements demanded qualities of a higher
order. He was a man of vast political and military genius.
As a soldier, he was one of those marvellously-gifted men,
arising at long intervals, who can see through the military
superstitions of the day, and organise power out of those
elements which the pedantic soldier rejects as rubbish.
The military superstition of that day ran on defensive
armour. The mounted knight could not be too com-
pletely shelled in iron ; the plates could not be too thick ;
the whole affair could not be too unwieldy. This iron-clad
ritter was a very formidable being to those who had faith
in him. Nothing else but his own duplicate could injure
him or resist him ; and there were abundant facts to con-
firm the faith. Instances were on record where one or two
mounted knights, thundering in among a herd of light-
armed peasants, made such a scattering among them as
does the lion when he appears among a herd of gazelles.
It was not in Scotland that such scenes had been wit-
nessed ; but the scorn of the canaille^ which they encour^
aged in the chivalry, spread over Europe. It was an
exciting and pleasant view of their position to those on
the bright side, and alike depressing to those on the othen
Its tendency was to divide the world into an insolent
aristocracy and a servile peasantry. The Normans were
no longer a new race, proud solely of their personal ad-
vantages, and ignorant of the names of their grandfathers.
More than two hundred years had consolidated for them
a lofty social position ; and uniting pride of birth to pride
in their personal endowments, they got servile clerks to
invent ancient pedigrees for them, and lift them to an
immeasurable social height above the yeomen and bur-

grave antiauary, Bishop Nicolson, with an unusual attempt at humour,
says : ** Tne famous Sir William Wallas, who was so barbarously
treated by our King Edward L, is still remembered as one of the
greatest patriots and champions that Scotland ever had ; and, as such,
has had his exploits recorded by several hands. The poem which
goes commonly about in old Scotch rhyme describes him like a true
knight-errant, cleaving his foes generally through braun and bane
down to the shoulders, and seldom striking oflf less than an arm or «
leg."— Scottish Historical Library, 246.*

1 82 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

ghers of their day. It was a service to the world that this
insolent and aggrandising spirit caught a check almost
simultaneously in three places — Switzerland, Flanders,
and Scotland.

In this last country, as we have seen, the conditions
were peculiarly discouraging. Not only were there no
leaders to be trusted, but the country had enjoyed peace
—a peace scarcely disturbed for more than a hundred
jrears. During this time the lilnglish had been ever fight-
ing — in Ireland, in Wales, in France, and among each
other in the Barons' Wars. The end showed, however,
that the stuff of which a warlike nation is made abounded :
in fact, historical conditions had made the Lowland Scots
the very pick of the hardy northern tribes. They were
made up of those who had left their homes whenever they
found tyranny, or, as it may be otherwise called, a strong
government, pressing on them. Thither came those who
had successively swarmed off before the pressure of Varus,
of Charlemagne, of Gorme the Old, and of Harold the
Fair-haired. And the last, and perhaps the stoutest and
truest of all, were the Saxon peasants who had sought
refuge from the iron rule of the Normans among a kindred
people still free.

Of the character in which Wallace first became formi-
dable the accounts in literature are distractingly conflict-
ing. With the chroniclers of his own country, who write
after the War of Independence, he is raised to the highest
pinnacle of magnanimity and heroism. To the English
contemporary chroniclers he is a pestilent ruftian ; a dis-
turber of the peace of society ; an outrager of all laws and
social duties ; finally, a robber — the head of one of many
bands of robbers and marauders then infesting Scotland.
But Edward's government and organisation were not of a
kind to permit mere soming and robbery, and there were
far more formidable powers at work than those which the
administration of criminal justice could cope with. The
people were all exasperated, and all ready to rise against
their new oppressors, wanting but a leader ; and the course
of events brought them that leader in Wallace.

Among the many who have chronicled his fame, Harry

WALLACE, 1296-97. 183

the blind minstrel is pre-eminent in having devoted his
whole force to the glorifying of his hero. Harry was a
blind wandering minstrel, but he belonged to the days
when his craft might be that of a gentleman ; and while
he addressed the commonalty to rouse their patriotic
ardour, he was received at great men's tables. He deals
with events, however, which were two hundred years old
when he sang them : he had no authority but tradition,
ind history must receive his stories with much jealousy.
Many of them, indeed, are practically impossible, or disal
with supernatural agencies ; and they are «^aluable, not as
narratives of facts, but as the things which the people of
Scotland delighted to hear about the hero of their idolatry.
Still, it has to be said that, incidentally from time to time,
little morsels of evidence have turned up, serving curiously
to confirm the fundamentals of some of his stories. Take,
for instance, the tragedy which made him swear eternal
vengeance against the invaders. He had just taken to
wife a virtuous damsel named Bradfute. She resides in
the town of Lanark, where there is an EkigUsh garrison ;
and as he is a marked man, from having already resented
the insults of the invaders, it is not safe for him to reside
there, and he must be content with stealthy visits to his
bride. One day, having just heard mass, he encounters
some straggling soldiers, who treat him with ribaldry and
practical jokes. A very animated scene of taunt and
retort, what is vulgarly called chaffing, is given by the
minstrel; but it must be held as in the style of the fif-
teenth rather than of the thirteenth century. Wallace
bears all with good temper, until a foul jest is flung at
his wife. Then he draws his great sword, and cuts off
the offender's hand. He is joined by a few of his coun-
trymen, and there is a scuffle ; but the English are many
times their number, and they must seek safety. His own
door is opened for Wallace by his wife, and he escapes
through it into the open country. For this service his
poor wife is slain, and then he vows eternal vengeance.
Gathering a few daring hearts round him, he falls upon
the garrison in the night, bums their quarters, and kills
several of them, among the rest William de Hazelrig,

1 84 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

whom Edward had made Earl of Clydesdale and Sherifl
of Ayr.

The story is not, on the whole, improbable : we can
easily believe in such a man being driven desperate by
insults and injuries to himself and to those dear to him.
But the latter portion of the story is confirmed in a curious
manner. About sixty years later, a Northumbrian knight.
Sir Thomas de Grey, had been taken prisoner in the Scots
wars, and was committed to the Castle of Edinburgh.
There, like Raleigh, he bethought him of writing something
like a history of the world; but it fortunately gave a
disproportionate prominence to events in or near his own
day, especially those in which he or his father participated.
He tells how, in the month of May 1297, his father was
in garrison at Lanark, and that Wallace fell upon the
quarters at night, killed Hazelrig, and set fire to the place.
The father had good reason to remember and tell about
the affair, for he was wounded in it, and left on the street
for dead. Had it not been that he lay between two blaz-
ing buildings, he would have died, wounded as he was, of
exposure in that chill May night, but he was recognised
by his comrade, William de Lundy, and tended by him till
he recovered.^ Further, it was charged against Wallace,
when indicted in London, that he had slain Hazelrig and
cut his body in pieces.

The influence of Wallace's nature brought around him
companions. He got by degrees a little band capable of
harassing outlying parties of Edward's soldiers. He and
his followers were emboldened at last to the flagrant
audacity of making a raid on the great justiciar, Ormsby,
when holding a court at Scone. The justiciar took to his

^ Scalacronica, 124. We are told by the editor of the Chronicle
that Sir Thomas de Grey, having claimed some reward for his ser-
vices against the Scots^ King Edward II., in the year 1319, issued
letters patent, reciting that ** he had given to Thomas de Grey and
to his heirs for ever, in consequence of the good, loyal, and long-con-
tinued service of the granter against the Scotch, an hundr^ and
eight acres of arable land, and eight acres of meadow, with their
appurtenances, in Howick, near Alnwick." — Introduction, xx. Thus
the Cumberland Greys acquired the possessions which gave them the
title of Howick.

WALLACE, 1296-97. 185

heels and escaped, but prisoners were taken and some
rich plunder, which made the feat, in the eyes of common
lawyers, a very audacious burglary. It was an event of
still greater importance that Wallace was joined by a terri-
torial magnate and a soldier of renown, William of Doug-
las. The origin of the family is supposed to have been
Flemish. Whether or not this kept away all sympathy
for the Norman adventurers, the family were not then
tempted to divided allegiance by estates scattered in other
countries, and were among the few great landed lords who
could truly be called Scotsmen. Douglas had repeatedly
done homage to King Edward, He was the commander
of the Castle of Ber\vick when it capitulated, and was of
course bound as tightly to Edward's service as oaths and
parchment could bind him. But his presence gave a re-
spectability to the insurrectionary force, which as yet the
leader, who had given no allegiance to be recalled, could
not have conferred on it.

Those with whom the responsibility for the tranquillity
of Scotland chiefly lay, saw in such events an ugly ten-
dency to turbulence, which must be extinguished at the
beginning. Beck, the warrior-bishop of Durham, took
this in hand ; but he was attacked in Glasgow, and, like
the justiciar, had to run for his own safety. King Edward
was then starting for Flanders. He had the bulk of the
Scots barons with him, and the others left at home,
especially Bruce, were well watched. According to the
experience of the age, when the natural leaders were re-
moved or cared for, it was supposed that the people would
be safe in the hands of those sent to govern them ; and
so little apprehension was tliere, that Warenne, Earl of
Surrey, the governor, had returned to England for the
benefit of his health. Beck, animated by the fright he
had got at Glasgow, had a formidable case to lay before
the king, who directed Surrey to levy the military array
to the north of the Trent, and go and stamp out these
disturbances. For his own reasons, Surrey sent his nephevf
Percy to manage this affair. The force sent was 300
mounted men-at-arms, and, according to the best-informed
chronicler, 40,000 foot-soldiers, 'i'his number may b«

1 86 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

taken in a wide sense ; but from the number of mounted
men it is clear that the force was not very strong. It
passed through Bruce's country of Annandale, and on to
Lochmaben, where at night there was alarm of an enemy
at hand; and we are told that the army burnt their
wooden huts to get light and see what was the matter.
The force marched on by the west coast, passing through
Ayr to Irvine, where an event occurred which has a place
in diplomatic record. It requires a word of preliminary
explanation.

Before this time, as we have seen, Bruce, the com-
petitor for the crown, died an old man. The head of the
house at this time lived, in fealty to Edwurd, on his estates
in England, content, as it would appear, to enjoy the ad-
vantages which his rank and wealth gave to him, and dis-
inclined to cast his lot in troubled waters. His son, who
was to become the hero-king, lived in Scotland as lord of
his mother's domains in Carrick. He was of a temper
more restless and ardent; and the convulsive political
conditions by which he was surrounded tended to excite
him. Independently of the vision of a crown that could
not but haunt him, he was one of a class for whom much
allowance should be made. Their taste and training, in
many cases their interest too, attached them to the bril-
liant court of the King of England. Yet in Scotland,
where they had estates, there was a determination not to
be subjected to that political arrangement which to them,
to some of them at least, would have been the most plea-
sant Hence we find those dubious movements and un-
certain aims which have subjected them to much infamy
as the betrayers of their country. Historians seemed to
have found in this broad charge a sort of revenge for the
perplexities which they have had to endure from the indis-
tinct and unaccountable movements of many of these
barons. We shall probably have a better notion of the
truth, if, instead of estimating exactly the amount of
honesty and patriotism that has influenced each of them,
we follow the course of their actions in a spirit of indif-
ference towards the personal motives at work. When
the country became more and more restless, and it was

WALLACE, 1296-97. 187

Imown that a leader, rising out of obscurity, was actually
gathering an insurrectionary force about him, it was felt
that Bruce might be tempted into mischief; and the war-
dens of the western marches called him to Carlisle, and
required him to take the strongest obligations of fealty
they could think of. He gave, too, a sort of guarantee
for his sincerity by outrages on the lands and household
of the Douglas, who had attached himself to Wallace.
Afterwards, however, he seems to have chafed at inaction
— to have panted to be, at all events, in a position to act
when he saw fit. He called on the Annandale men to
muster round him. These were his father's vassals, and they
declined to commit themselves to some uncertain enter-
prise when the demand was not even made by their proper
lord. He raised a body from his own domains in Carrick ;
but what he was to do with them was not known to otheYs,
probably not distinct to himself. To join Wallace could
hardly serve him any good turn. Wallace was, in all his
conduct, thoroughly constitutional. There had been a
king of Scots throned at Scone as King John. Of that
king, as the head and representative of the state, he
counted himself the servant ; and everything that he did
was in the name of John, by the grace of God, King of
the Scots. What Bruce had to look for, then, if he joined
Wallace's army, was the dire vengeance of Edward if the
rising were a failure, and the loss of his English domains
if success should make him a Scots earl under King
John.

Bruce, with his Carrick men, and a cluster of other
barons, whose objects seem to have been equally unde-
cided, were at Irvine when Percy's army had come so far.
They came to the conclusion that the best thing to be
done was to surrender on terms. They asked if there was
any one in the English army authorised to receive them
to King Edward's peace ; and being told that there was»
they negotiated a surrender. It is on record as written
at Irvine on the 9th of July. The persons who surren-
der are Robert, Earl of Carrick ; James, the Steward of
Scotland; John, his brother; Alexander de Lyndesey;
and, ratlier unaccountably, William of Douglas.

l88 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

We have no reason to suppose that Wallace was pre-
sent on this occasion. His name is not mentioned by the
contemporary English chronicler, whose account of the
affair is the most minute, and the source of all others.^
Wallace seems, indeed, to have been in the north laying
his plans for resisting the invading army at the Forth, or
the Scots water, as it was still called. This is important,
because it has so often been said that his army was dis-
tracted by the divisions caused by the nobles in his ranks,
who were jealous of his supremacy. To complete the
character of a great commander, he should be too strong-
handed to permit dissension in camp, however many
enemies he may have outside; and better evidence is
needed ere we allow such a blot on the generalship of
Wallace.

The affair of Irvine added to the number of the feudal
leaders of the Scots whom Edward held in hand, and
he thought he might with safety take his mtended de-
parture for Flanders. While he was there Wallace organ-

^ Hcmingford, i. 123. The discovery of the blunder of a copyist
which has tended to support the notion of WaUace having been con-
cerned, is one of the achievements of the minute eye of Sir Francis
Palgrave. Let him tell his triumph. ** The first of these instru-
ments, or the submission, concludes with these words : * Escrit a Ire-
win le nocvime jour du mois de Juyl en Ic an del regne le Reys Ed-
ward vintime quint* (p. 198). Tliis passage is thus printed by Rymer
(i. 868) : * Escrit a Sire Willaume^ le noemme jour du moys de Juyl
en le an del regne le Reys Edward vintime cjuint* The original
is somewhat defaced, and Rjrmer, or his transcriber, not being con-
versant with the character, nor very familiar with the language, in
reading the word Ireivin^ mistook a partially-effaced flourish of the
capital / for an S^ and the three parallel strokes of the concluding .
syllable * in ' for the letter w, thus altering the word to * Sirewm?
The next stage in error was to divide this word into Sire Willaumey
and thus the printed text was formed. Upon this text, appearing in
an authentic publication, the subsequent writers of Scottish history
had to work, and it was quite natural to suppose that Sire Willaunu
could be none other than Sir William Wallace. Hence Lord Hailes
observes, * The meaning is, as I presume, that the barons had notified
to Wallace that they had made terms of accommodation for them-
selves and their party. Hut Wallace scorned jsubmission,' &c. (u 302.)
'i'he whole of this reasoning, and much more, is therefore grounded
upon the false reading of a modem copying clerk." — Document!
and Records, introd., cxxiv, cxxv.

WALLACE, 1297. 189

iscd a great force in the Lowland counties northward of
the Tay, drawing large accessions from Aberdeenshire.
He got possession of nearly all the strongholds, such as
they were. He was besieging the Castle of Dundee
when he heard that the English force with Surrey, who had
followed his nephew, and Cressingham, the treasurer,
were making for Stirling Bridge, the great pass between the
north and south. There he resolved to deal a blow which
might stop them.

The position he took up has natural features which
explain at once how it suited his purpose. It is marked
by the tall tower of the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, on the
flat carse lands below Stirling through which the river
Forth winds itself.^ Close behind him was the Abbey
Craig, an abrupt trap rock, yet not in all places so abrupt
but that pathways might be found to the top, which those
first in possession could use, and then so fortify as to defy
any others to follow them. From the back of the Craig
a neck of broken ground led immediately to the near
mountain-range called the Ochil Hills : so much for the
means of retreat For receiving an enemy the ground
was still more happily selected. It was within one of the
loops of the Forth, which swept almost all round it in a
circle. In all ages of warfare the advantages of such a
position are notorious — it makes the commander inside
the loop master of the situation. To get at any point,
whether it be to cross over or to meet an enemy crossing,
the leader inside the loop has only the diameter of a circle
to deal with, the leader outside has the circumference to
go round ; so that the choice of the conditions of battle —
if the English commanders were determined on a battle —
lay with Wallace.^

Little reliance can be placed on the numbers in such
armies. The English chronicler, who has given the ear-

^ The Monastery of Skambskynel, as Hemingford calls it.

* The chronicler, Hemingford, pays a high tribute to Wallace's
generalship in saying, "Nee fuit aptior locus in regno Scotia?, ut con-
cludendum Anghcos in manus Scotorum, aut multos in manns pau*
corum."— I. 12S.

1 90 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

liest and fullest account of the war, says that Wallace had
forty thousand foot -men and one hundred and eighty
mounted men. On the English side there were fifty thou-
sand foot-soldiers. The mounted men, however, would
be considered the element of real importance, and when
it is said that these numbered a thousand we may suppose
the estimate pretty accurate. The English commanders,
we are told, might have strengthened themselves from an
additional force under Percy, but they already thought
their army more than sufficient for its purpose. Before
the battle there occurred an incident curiously exemplify-
ing the position of the Norman or Normanised aristocracy,
whose titles nominally connected them with Scotland.
The Steward and the Earl of Lennox, with some others in
Surre/s army, requested that the fate of the Scots army
might be postponed until they should reason with its com-
mander. They had sympathy enough with the common-
alty of Scotland to desire not to see them butchered in
a helpless mass. They returned, reporting that Wallace
was absolutely unreasonable, and that there was no hope
of averting a contest. Two friars sent to the Scots camp,
probably as a final effort to prevent useless slaughter, were
equally unsuccessful.

On the morning of the nth of September the English
commanders resolved to pass the Forth and attack the
Scots. Nothing but a steadfast faith in the transcendent
superiority of their trained troops when set against a
rabble could have tempted them to a project which, if
there were but an approach to equality in fighting power,
was desperate. There was a proposal to take a detach-
ment across by a ford, so as to make a flank attack while
the main body crossed the bridge. If there was any near
point where the river could then be forded there is none
now; but the English commanders — Cressingham espe-
cially, it is said — were too impatient for the punishment
of their presumptuous foes to adopt any such timid policy.
The bridge was narrow, and permitted the horsemen to
pass only two and t^vo. The English army kept stream-
ing over from early in the morning until eleven o'clock.
The Scots were, it would seem, drawn up on the slopes of

BATTLE OF STIRLING, 1297. . 19I

the Abbey Craig, silent and actionless. At length, when
their leader thought a sufficient number of the enemy were
on his side, he sent a body round to seize and hold the
head of the bridge, and stop all passage to or from it.
That he should have been able to do so showed extreme
negligence in those responsible for the safety of the Eng-
lish army. This could not but create serious uneasiness
in those who had crossed the bridge ; the foremost were
struggling to get back, while those behind were yet press-
ing on, and in the crush and confusion many fell into the
river. AVith this to discourage and alarm them in their
rear, the troops who had crossed the bridge had to meet
an onset from the bulk of the Scots army. The result
was irretrievable confusion and general slaughter. The
completeness of the ruin of the English army is attested
by one of its knights having gained immortality by effect-
ing a retreat for himself and some others : this was Sir
Mai-maduke de Twenge, who, when others spoke of throw-
ing themselves into tlie river, with a small following cut
his way to the bridge and recrossed it But the recovery
was of little avail to the rest of the army. It only tempted
them to flight ; and while the bridge drew off its narrow
crowd, the Scots slaughtered the mob crushing upon it, or
drove them into the river. ^

Surrey had not crossed, but he felt the defeat so entire
that he at once rode hard to Berwick. Cressingham was

* Harry the minstrel tells how Wallace tampered with the supports
of the timber bridge : —

" A wricht he tuk, the suttellast as thar was.
And ordained him to saw the burd in twa,
Be the myd streit, that nane mycht our it ga:
On chamaill bandis nald it full fast and sune.
Syne fyld with clay as no thing had beyne done.
'Die tother end he ordained for to be,
How it suld stand on three rowans on tre,
Quhen an war out that the laif down suld fall."

— vii. xiso.

He then stationed a person at hand, who had nothing to do but to
draw a peg at a given signal, when the bridge fell with all who were
on it A trick like this was a means of exciting the admiration of the
multitude, slow to understand the higher qualities that enable a com«
mander to handle effectively the special forces at his disposal

192 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

a churchman, but much given, as it was said, to the pomp
and circumstance of glorious war. He had been the soul
of the English oppression in Scotland, and was very hate-
ful. There are stories told of the Scots having taken off
his skin and distributed it in morsels — not by any means,
as the monkish chroniclers think it right to explain^ out oi
veneration for them as relics. One can easily believe this
10 be true, while wishing that no worse things had to
be recorded about the contest to which England and
Scotland were now fairly committed.

193

CHAPTER XXL

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE BATTLE OF ROSLIN.

NATIONAL INFLUENCE OF THE BATTLE OP STIRLING — WALLACE'S
DEALINGS WITH THE HANSE TOWNS BRAIDS INTO ENGLAND OM
THE EAST AND THE WEST— WALLACE'S PERSONAL CONDUCT— PRO-
TECTION TO THE MONKS OP HEXHAM — BECOMES GUARDIAN OP
THE KINGDOM — EDWARD*S SECOND GREAT INVASION — SIEGE OP
DIRLETON— BATTLE OP FALKIRK— DISAPPEARANCE OP WALLACE
FROM HISTORY — QUESTIONS AS TO HIS HAVING GONE TO FRANCE
AND ROME — FRENCH AND ENGLISH DIPLOMACY — PRANCE AND
SCOTLAND BALANCED AGAINST EDWARD AND THE FLEMINGS —
THE QUESTION OP THE INDEPENDENCE OP SCOTLAND BEFORE
THE COURT OP ROME — A PAPAL EMISSARY— HIS ADVENTURES ON
THE BORDER— THE CURIOUS CASE LAID BEFORE THE PAPAL COURT
BY KING EDWARD — ACTIVE WARFARE RESUMED — THE SIEGE OP
CAERLAVEROCK— ITS HISTORY A TYPE OF THE SIEGES OP THE DAY
—BATTLE OF ROSLIN.

The later chroniclers tell us how Wallace, having the
country at his command, set to and adjusted thoroughly
effective systems for the official organisation of the execu-
tive, the administration of justice, and the transaction of
local business by properly constituted local boards. But
in the emergency the defence of the country would be the
pre-eminent consideration, and so we are told how he
divided the kingdom into military districts, and appointed
a muster-book of able-bodied men between the ages of
sixteen and sixty to be kept in each shire, barony, lord-
ship, town, and burgh. The persons who mention these
things lived at a time too late to have practical know-
ledge of them ; and we all have practical knowledge of
the fact, that it has been an established historical etiquette

VOL. II. N

194 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

to attribute such organisations to the hero of a countr3r'9
idolatry when the fortune of war has given him the upper
hand.

There is, however, one little authentic vestige of his
public conduct after the battle, which shows him prompt
to help the cause of peaceful progress. We may look on
this battle as the point at which a change in national feel-
ing was completed. The Scots had no natural antipathy
to their English neighbours, who were of the same race as
themselves. They were jealous of the interference of the
Norman kings and nobles with their institutions, but in
this they made almost common cause with the Anglo-
Saxons. Gradually, no doubt, since soldiers and tax-
gatherers had come among them, there grew a dislike of
the English people. Now the two liad measured their
strength in a stricken field — a great inspirer of national
animosity ; and from this time we may date that obdurate
hostility, the last vestiges of which have almost been seen
by the existing generation. The victory was an imme-
diate and a permanent encouragement to the Scots.
Through all the calamities and reverses they had after-
wards to endure, it reminded them that the enemy so
haughty and so powerful had been beaten, and might be
beaten again.

Its immediate influence was so powerful as to clear the
country of the invaders. All the strongholds were re-
covered by the Scots — even Berwick, the loss of which
was very vexatious to Edward, for he had given instruc-
tions to make it impregnable with stone walls, in addition
to his earthen mound, and the instructions had been
neglected.

There lately was found in the old commercial city of
I.ubeck a short document, which happens to be the only
authentic vestige of Wallace's movements immediately
after the battle. It is dated nth October 1297, and is a
communication to the towns of Lubeck and Hamburg in
the name of Andrew de Moray and William Wallace,
generals of the Army of the kingdom and community of
Scotland. They thank the worthy friends of their coun-
try in these towns for services and attentions which the

RAID INTO ENGLAND, 1297. I9S

Unfortunate condition of their country had hindered iti
people from duly acknowledging. They assure their dis-
tant trading friends, however, .that commerce with the
ports of Scotland will now be restored ; for the kingdom
of Scotland, thanks be to God, has been recovered by
battle from the power of the English.* We have seen that
Scotland was becoming an actively trading nation before
her troubles broke out. And this little document is a
touching testimony to the prevalence of those peaceful
pursuits, which were so cruelly crushed by the remorseless
invaders j we have to wait many years ere we again find
the trace of foreign trade in Scotland.

Indeed, very evil days were close at hand. A famine
fell on Scotland, and, whether for food or vengeance,
bands of armed men crossed the border, and played havoc
in Cumberland and Westmoreland, over the old disputed
district. The English chronicles — which are the only
contemporary accounts of this affair — are confused, as all
accounts of plundering and devastating inroads, whether
by friend or foe, must needs be. Language and imagina-
tion are almost exhausted by the monkish chroniclers in
describing the cruelties and brutalities of these rievers;
and yet the accounts of their deeds want originality, for
there had been a sort of terrible formula for describing the
work of a Scots invading army from the Battle of the
Standard doi^Tiwards. Of cruelty and rapacity there was
no doubt a fearful amount, but it must be remembered
that the suffering side had the telling of the story ; and it
was a policy with the English clergy, who were also the
historians, to make out that the Scots were sacrilegious as
well as cruel, and reserved their special tortiures and in-
dignities for holy men and women.

Wallace was at one time in the host taking command.
From the tenor of the confused narratives, it might be
inferred that the marauders had swarmed over the border
before he joined them, and this is almost proved by dates.
The letter to the corporations of Hamburg and Lubeck
•^as written, as it says, in Scotland, bearing date nth

* Wallace Tapers, 159.

196 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

October; and when he was at Hexham, on the 7th of
November, he found the place devastated by a previous
inroad. At all events, those memorials of the sad busi-
ness which are most distinct and authentic are thoroughly
honourable to his memory. After a hundred and sixty
years, the unfortunate Priory of Hexham was again wasted,
and, as the annalists of the house tell us, just when they
were exulting in the possession of noble additions to their
buildings. When Wallace went there only three monks
were found, cowering in a little oratory which they had
made for themselves in the midst of the devastation;
and when some one asked where their treasury was, they
said the Scots horde had already carried it off, and they
who had removed it would know where to find it Then
we are told how Wallace desired one of the monks to
celebrate mass, and gave reverent attendance on it, yet
could not take such order but that when his back was
turned his rough followers plundered the altar of what
sacred symbols were yet left, \Vhat we best know of his
conduct on this occasion is, that' he granted two writs of
safe-conduct — the one to the prior and convent generally,
the other to one of the monks, with a man-at-arms and
two domestics, when on a journey to hold an interview
with him. He had then associated with himself in the
nominal command a young hero, aftenvards renowned, Sir
Andrew Moray. To him, in the preamble, he gives pre-
cedence, beginning : " Andreas de Moravia et Willelmus
Wallensis, generals of the army of the King of Scotland,
in the name of the illustrious Prince, the Lord John, by
God's grace King of Scotland, with the consent of the
commonalty of the realm." These writs are among the
few luckily preserved morsels of real evidence which, in
the minds of some, save the career of Wallace from being
treated as that of a mythical person.^

^ That these documents should be given by Hemingford (i. 135) in
a shape to stand criticism, is a testimony to the general credibility of
that chronicler's narrative ; and not the less so that he can scarce ever
mention Wallace without calling him ilU latro^ which may either
mean that robber or that cut-throat. A critical friend has noted.

RAID INTO ENGLAND, 1297. 1 97

After these affairs, we find Wallace acting with the title
of Guardian of the kingdom of Scotland, and leader of the
armies of the same, in name of King John, and with con-
sent of the commonalty. Whether or not, as the later
chroniclers say, it was by a parliament held in Selkirkshire
that he was raised to this dignity, we may conclude that it
had the consent, in some shape or other, of the burghs
and other portions of the Estates. There is just one writ
by the Guardian extant — it appoints Alexander of Scrimis-
chur, or Scrimgeur, to be constable of the Castle of Dun-
dee, and invests him with certain lands on the hill above

however, that the vituperative epithet is not to be found in references
to Wallace later than the affair of Hexham. See on this inroad the
chronicle of Henry of Knyghton, by Twisden, 2520. He tells na-
turally enough how the depredators, bullying at Carlisle, said they
appeared in the name of ** William the Conqueror;" and when
asked for an explanation of so startling a title, said he was William
Wallace, the Kmg of Scotland's general. In Prynne's Records (iiL
J42) there is an account which rather discredits itself by representing
John, King of Scotland, as the leader of the raid. It is during this
inroad that the English chroniclers tell us how seven earls of Scot-
land took part with their followers — the Earls of Buchan, Monteith,
Stratheam, Lennox, Ross, Athole, and Mar, along with the son of
John Comyn. We are told that they collected a great force in Annan-
dale — Bruce's country. This seems to have been a separate expedi-
tion from that commanded by Wallace. They attacked Carlisle and
burned the suburb. They tried to fire the gate, but unsuccessfully ;
and we are told how a certain Galwegian, having reached it with a
blazing faggot, was speared by men posted above the gate. It hap-
pened that a Scots riever was at that time a captive in Carlisle, and
Knowing that his countrymen M'ere besie^ng the town, he co-operated
with them by setting it on fire, and bummg a large portion of it. We
are told that the citizens — women as well as men — manfully defended
the walls with stones and arrows, and drove the assailants away. In
that expedition the Scots were aided by an ally of a remarkable kind
—Robert de Ros, the English governor of Werk, who deserted his
post and the service of Edward, and showed his zeal in the cauFe of
the Scots by surrounding a force of a thousand Englishmen, at a place
called Prestfen, and putting them to death, save a small number who
escaped ; this is not the sole instance in which a disposition was
shown in the northern counties to make common cause with Scotland.
This episode of the siege of Carlisle by the seven earls is not to Us
found m the usual chronicles and histories. It occurs in the Scala*
cronica, 122, and is given in more detail in Rishanger, 156. Both
give the titles of the earls, and in the same order.

igS WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

the town in reward for his fidelity in bearing the royal
banner of Scotland.^ The constabulary and the estate
were held for centuries by Scrimgeurs, who distinguished
themselves in honourable service; and a special lustre
was always conceded by the popular voice to that race
which held a hereditary title conferred by Wallace.

For all that a great victory had been gained, and the
enemy swept out of the country, a close inquirer, looking
at the condition of things, even without light from subse-
quent events, could see that there was small hope for
Scotland. Wallace might be, in the abstract, the idol of
the people, and they might be ready to place in his hands
their liberties and their property ; but the organisation by
which the people were brought to act, both for peace and
war, was the feudal system. The king banished — the
great feudatories of the crown keeping out of the way, if
they were not obstructive — the feudal organisation could
not be worked, and a popular chief could not create, at
his own hand, a substitute for it. The end was only de-
layed by the difficulties of King Edward. He was still in
Flanders, where matters hardly went to his mind; and
when he came over to Westminster, demanding from his
parliament a grant for the punishment of Scotland, he was
met by the old demand, odious to the ears of his race, for
the confirmation of the charters in the first place; his
patriotic parliament would then consider about a supply.
Having got what he could, there were personal sum-
monses stringently urged, and the levy of the feudal array;
and while his troops were gathering, the king took the
opportunity of making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St
John of Beverley — a kind of incidental aid which he
always sought for his projects, when it did not interfere
with the preparations for effecting them by the arm of the
flesh.

He entered Scotland with an army which, if it ap«

^ The writ will be found in facsimile in Anderson's Diplomala,
Kliii., "Charta Domini Gulielmi Wallace custodis Scotiae nomino
fohannis Baliol Regis, aim sigilla ejusdein Johannis." A copy of tLe
charter is in the Wallace Papers, p. 159.

INVASION OF SCOTLAND, 1298. 1 99

•
proachcd the character given of it by the English chronicles
of the day, was magnificent and overwhelming. There
were at first 7000 mounted men-at-arms, 3000 of them in
coats of mail, and they were afterwards joined by 500
from Gascony. After this the number of footmen was of
little moment. Eighty thousand is spoken of as the num-
ber. Among them were many of the king's Welsh and
Irish subjects ; these were not of much repute in regular
war, but it was generally deemed a matter of small
moment from what material the ordinary rabble pf foot-
soldiers were collected.

The army met an interruption at the Castle of Dirleton,
near the promontory of North Berwick. At all events, if
it were not taken, they would leave a strong place behind
them garrisoned by the enemy, and it was not easily
taken. Its ruins, which may now be seen, are of a build-
ing of that age, and it is possible that it may have been
the first of the new class of fortresses besieged in Scotland.
We know nothing, unfortunately, of the details of the.
siege — merely that the indefatigable warrior- bishop,
Anthony Beck, found the taking of the place a long and
difficult business. It is noted that the besieging army,
running short Of provisions, were able to supply themselves
from the produce of the surrounding fields, and this has
been taken as evidence of the fertility of the south of
Scotland at that time.

Ere the king and his army reached the Forth, near
Edinburgh, they saw the policy of their enemy, and were
somewhat unnerved by it : it was to leave them to tread a
desert where there was neither food to eat, nor man to
direct them on their way. The policy was, indeed, almost
effectual, and only some small chances in their favour
saved them from a miserable retreat.

The crisis must have been a tantalising one to Wallace.
He could muster but a poor force — about a third of the
enemy's on the whole, and only a thousand mounted men.
A battle was ruin to him, but he believed that if he
waited the starved army of the invaders would have to
retreat, and his force was sufficient to do them abundant
miscluef by harassing them as they went ; but fortune was

200 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

•

against him. Hovering in the neighbourhood to catch
the opportunity when it should come, he was discovered.
Two knights, and it is noted that they bear Scots titles,
are said to have sent a boy to Edward to tell him where
the Scots army was to be found. ^ No time was lost in
putting this information to use. The army, marching
from Kirkliston, required to spend a night near Linlith-
gow, and, king and all, they lay upon the bare ground.
King Edward was a thoroughly working soldier, and it
was not the notion of his age that it behoved a comman-
der, especially if he were of royal rank, to isolate himself
in splendours and comforts from the vulgar hardships of
the field. That night a page mishandled a horse near the
kingf and the beasPs hind legs struck and wounded him,
breaking two ribs as some authorities say.' This made
no interruption; the king reserved the tending of his
wounds until he was through the momentous business of
next day.

There was no chance for Wallace in retreat — no alter-
native but to fight. In the previous battle the great point
made was the selection of the ground ; in this he showed
even more of the tactician in the disposal of his troops
where they were compelled to fight. It is a strong testi-
mony to skill in the ordering of an army that it should be
not only distinct, but hold a shape of which we can esti-
mate the merit by knowing how valuable it is in modem

^ This incident has been founded on as one of several which show
the Scots aristocracy of the day as traitors to their country. The
authority for it is in a passage in Hemingford, certainly one of tlie
oddest in which a crisis in a nation's fate has ever been told : ** Ecce
duo comites, Patricius S. et comes de Anegos, die proximo ante fes-
tum Marine Magdelinae, summo diluculo ad Eplscopum Dunelmensem
venientes, et cum eis episcopus statim ad regem statuerunt puerum
exploratorem coram rege, qui diceret 'Salve rex,' et rex ad cum
* Salve.' Puer etiam intulit * Domine mi rex, exercitus Scotorum et
omnes hostes tui non distant a te nisi per sex lucas modicas juxta
Faukirke,*" &c. (p. 162). The account is repeated in the same
words by other chroniclers. Patricius S. is set down as the Earl of
Dunbar. This is rather slender evidence on which to identify
two Scotch earls, and then find them guilty of treachery to theii
country.

• Walsingham, 75.

BATTLE OF FALKIRK, 1298. 201

■warfare. The English chronicler describes the mar-
shalling of the Scots army with such clearness that a
picture or diagram would not have improved it. Taking
up a slightly inclined plane, Wallace drew up his small
body of mounted cavaliers in the rear, and distributed
the footmen into circular clumps. In each circle the
men knelt down — those on the outer rim at least — and
held their lances obliquely erect; within the circle of
lancers were the bowmen. The arrangement, save that
it was circular instead of rectangular, was precisely the
same as the "square to receive cavalry*' which has
baffled and beaten back so many a brilliant army in
later days. It seemed at first as if Wallace's circles
were to have a similar history. The first efforts against
them w^ere ineffectual, and the horsemen seemed shy
of charging the thick clumps of spears. The inequality
of force was too great, however, to be neutralised by skill.
The charges of Edward's mounted horsemen at last
crushed the circles, one after another, and when this was
done the rest was mere rout and slaughter. Wallace
managed to carry a small body out of the field, and
marched to Stiriing. They found it useless to attempt to
hold the place; so, destroying what they could, they
marched on no one knows whither, the commander
and his followers alike disappearing from the history of
that war.

The victory was a profitless one, except for its depres-
sing influence on the spirit of the Scots. Edward had
not prepared himself to keep an army in a country so
utterly stripped of food. He swept the country to the
right and left, accomplishing nothing but destruction.
The population appears to have been drawn off beyond
the Forth. What Edward might have found there we do
not know, for he did not venture northwards; and he
was at last compelled to drag his starved army back to
Carlisle.

From this time we hear no more of Wallace concerning
himself in active life in Scotland. Much has been said of
the cabals and aristocratic jealousies which drove him
from the office of Guardian, but in reality the whole affaii

202 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

is a secret to the present day. The guardians were kept
up as an institution in John Comyn of Badenoch and
John de Soulis. The tendency of events was deepening
the gulf between England and Scotland, and rendering
double allegiance ever more hopeless. Hence the great
feudatories who had domains in both countries had to
make their selection so as to hold by the one and abandon
the other, but they naturally took the alternative gradu-
ally and reluctantly.

The romancers after this time send Wallace to France,
where he comes out as the true knight-errant in feats witli
lions, robbers, and pirates. Here, again, some vestiges of
evidence lately found tend to confirm the material fact that
he sojourned in France. In a mere list of documents found
in his possession when he was carried captive to London,
was a letter of safe-conduct to him from King Philip of
France.^ While he was in power, indeed, Wallace kept a
sort of ambassador in France in William Lamberton,
Bishop of St Andrews. Lamberton was, in fact, his own
bishop. When the see became vacant, William Comyn
was the candidate favoured by King Edward ; and as this
rendered it necessary that the national party should have
another person, Lamberton was made bishop. His ac-
ceptance was one of the charges brought against him by
King Edward in an ecclesiastical process at the Vatican,
and other charges set forth that the bishop had gone to
France, where he advocated the cause of the rebellious
Scots and excited the traitor Wallace by prospects of
French aid.^ That Wallace should have had a safe-con-
duct to France is not sufficient to inform us that he went
there and used it, but the probability that he did so is
much strengthened by finding that he got credentials from
France onwards. A very minute scrap among documents
in the Tower of London, without date, was found to be a
letter by Philip, King of France, to his representatives at
the Court of Rome, recommending to them his good friend
William le Walois, of Scotland, Knight, and desiring them
to do what in them lay to expedite the business he had to

^ Palgrave Documents, cxcv. ' Ibtd.t ocvi

FRENCH ALLIANCE, 1298-1303. 203

hransact at the Court of Rome.^ Both in the French and
in the Papal Court there was then a quantity of diplomatic
business in progress regarding Scotland. We shall hear
more of it hereafter ; but it is necessary in dealing with
it to leave out the name of Wallace, regretting that
there is nothing to inform us distinctly whether the
scraps of evidence alluded to are or are not connected
with eminent diplomatic services performed by the popular
hero.

Early in the year 1298, a souffrance, as it is called in
Norman-French, had been negotiated between England
and France. The word is translated as a truce, but it
means something very different from a modern truce. It
was a transaction between governments, while a truce is
merely a transaction between armies — a promise to sus-
j end hostilities for a time, and until some affair should be
transacted, such as the burial of the dead during a siege,
or the reception of instructions from headquarters. The
souffrance was more of the nature of a peace at the present
day ; and the reason why of old it was treated as distinct
from a peace was this : The wars of the time generally arose
from questions of succession or of feudal superiority.
When it became desirable to cease fighting, while yet
neither side was prepared to give in to the other, there
was an agreement to give up fighting in the mean time,
reserving all rights entire for future discussion. A souf-
france or truce of this kind might last for centuries.

There was thus a virtual peace between England and
France, which specially included the allies of each. Philip
complained that it was not faithfully kept, in as far as
King Edward held in bondage a good ally of France,
John, King of Scotland, along with several persons of
rank and consideration, his subjects. There was a solemn
conference about this matter, which appears to have been
held at Edinburgh while Edward was retiring southward
after his victory at Falkirk.' Edward maintained that the

' Wallace Papers, 102.

* *' Actum in castris sea tentoriis dicti regis Anglise prope Castnim
rucUarum in Scotia, quod vulgariter nuncupatur Edinboarg." The

204 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

French alliance had been renounced by the Scots and their
king ; and if he could not establish this point in diplomatic
law, he could show that he had spared no pains to accom-
plish it. The renunciation was conspicuous, not only in
the submission of Baliol when he was finally carried away,
but in the acts of homage which Edward exacted from
people of all ranks in his great progress through Scotland
after the capture of Benvick. Each of these was separ-
ately recorded and kept ; and if a bundle of such parch-
ments could have accomplished what was wanted, the
thing had been done.^

The King of France, however, thought that the annulling
of treaties must lie with those who had contracted them.
He had a treaty with the King of Scots ; and if that king,
without making him a party, had engaged with another, it
was because he was in the power of that other. On the
other hand, the King of France did not admit that Edward
had feudal claims authorising him to maintain that the
King of Scots, being his vassal, could not be a party to a
treaty. There were claims of superiority of all kinds
bandied about among cro^vned heads at that time ; and
where one king found another reigning over an established
kingdom, the two were entitled to hold diplomatic rela-
tions. King Edward had to let the question hang over
from the force of circumstances. We shall see that he
was making preparations to crush Scotland by an irresist-
ible army, but was so impeded by one difficulty after an-
other, that he could not make an effectual beginning to
the project. He received in the midst of his struggles a
courteous communication from the new guardians of Scot-
land, setting forth that they intended to maintain the truce,
and expressing a hope that he would do the same.
Through the tedious diplomatic documents which were
working on to a general peace, we still find France insist-
ing on the truce ; and in the autumn of 1300 we find King
Edward agreeing, at the solicitation of the King of France,

date is 1298, and the 26th year of Edward I., which brings it aftei
20th November. — Foedera (Record edition), L 898.
^ See the specimens printed in the Ragman Rolls.

FRENCH ALLIANCE, 1298-1303. 20^

to continue the truce till Pentecost This document keeps
clear of the usual phraseology about the rebellion of the
Scots against their lord superior, but at the same time it
carefully avoids any acknowledgment of Scotland as a state
or kingdom. The getits (VEscoce are the persons to whom
the benefit of the truce is conceded.^ At a conference in
January 1302, between representatives of England and
France, the French insisted on the English abstaining
from hostilities in Scotland, and proposed that their
seizures or acquisitions there should be placed in the
hands of the King of France for future disposal.*

In the oscillations of this diplomacy, against whatever
weight Scotland might give to France there was a balance
on the other side. King Edward had a league with the
Flemings. These were rising rapidly in wealth and im-
portance by their industry. To a chivalrous monarchy
like that of France, an independent State strengthened by
such resources was a neighbour not to be endured, and
cruel efforts were made to subdue and annex Flanders.
But in tlie stout Flemings defending their liberties King
Edward found just the kind of aid that King Philip sought
in the Scots. Such were the allies about which the t>vo
great powers ever pressed each other. If Edward was not
bound to observe the truce towards Scotland, then Philip
was released from any obligation to spare Flanders. After
long treating, the two great powers found that they could
only come to terms by each shaking off its ally. In read-
ing through the articles of perpetual peace and friendship
of 1303, commonly called the Peace of Paris, nothing will
be found about allies, or about Scotland or Flanders.^

' Foedera (Record edition), i. 924.

• Ibid., 937. The conference was held in Scotland at a well-
known place-^Linlithgow. The king had been able to carry his
army so far, and established his court there for some time.

* There are carefully-prepared conditions in the treaty, which go,
among many other things, to show the extreme importance attributed
to all feudal questions of superiority and homage among princes. In
terms which leave no room for the supposition that King Edward
would keep any obligation from which he could escape by a quibble,
it is stipulated that he shall perform his homage for Aquitaine ever
diily, and without delay. He is not to be excused from personal

i206 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

There was a deputation attending to the interests of
Scotland at the Court of France, including Bishop Lan*-
berton, the Steward of Scotland, and other eminent per-
sons. They were no doubt somewhat disturbed when
they saw this treaty; but they wrote to the guardians
and community of Scotland to be of good cheer — King
Philip's words were yet encouraging, and he taught them
to expect that he might influence King Edward to offer
terms to Scotland. But should King Edward's heart, they
say, be hardened like Pharaoh's, they hope their country-
men will hold on manfully and unanimously, trusting in
the God of battles, and resisting to the last ; and they
throw out a few words of comfort and encouragement in
telling of the fame their countrymen had acquired far and
wide over Europe by their achievements in the war with
England.^ There is more diplomacy for some time be^
tween Scotland and France : the alliance has not been
cancelled, but France does not find it convenient to act
on it.

There was another foreign influence at work on the
destinies of Scotland. The view to be taken by the Court
of Rome, about the struggle and the merits of either party,
was of much moment. About the policy which the Pope-
dom had pursued for some centuries in the quarrels of the
European powers, there is a popular notion that it was
merely a development of the propensity of powerful priests
to meddle with matters out of the line of their spiritual
duties. It fell to the Popes, however, to perform onerous
duties in national diplomacy. The system of rights and
obligations, called the law of nations, and latterly inter-
national law, had the anomalous quality of being a code,
obligatory among the states of Europe, which yet there
was no supreme head to enforce. It was a law punish-
ing and protecting without any court to enforce its decrees.
It had not been tlius, however, in its origin. This law of

attendance, unless upon the ground of sickness or storms at sea, or any
other sufficient excuse, the ground of which is distinct and notorious ;
and if he have a personal excuse for absenting himself, his son muit
come in his place.
^ Foedera (Record edition), i. 955.

DEALINGS WITH THE PAPAL COURT, 1298- 1300. 207

nations — the diplomatic code of Europe — ^was founded by
the Empire, which had power to give it force ; and it has
existed down to the present day as a tradition sanctioned
by immemorial usage, and the deference of public opinion
throughout the civilised world. ^Vhen the secular side of
the Empire was broken up, there remained yet the eccle-
siastical side, with a powerful and intelligent official staff,
penetrating into the farthest provinces of every country in
Europe. A great deal of the work of the Empire at large
fell to this department. It was the most natural of all
alternatives — one official organisation being broken up,
here was another so close as to be almost identical with
it; not only complete, but in the best working order. Thus
many departments of secular business fell to the Church
— among others, in several countries, the organisation of
those municipalities which were so valuable a member of
the old Imperial system. As we have already seen, the
Church supplied an organisation for keeping up the old
civil law throughout Europe — an operation less remark-
able in those countries where it quietly prevailed than in
England, where th'j common law gave it continual battle.

In the same way the organisation at the Papal Court
kept up the old comitas gentium — the diplomatic relations
which held Europe together. The system was not so
much a creation of aggrandising, ambitious churchmen,
as the result of a pressure from those forcing business into
the holy court. This was a vast establishment thronged
by greedy, ambitious suitors of all nations and languages ;
and thus sought and courted, it could not fail to be
powerful. Perfect justice was no more to be found there
than elsewhere among human institutions. Influences
were at work commensurate with the greatness of the
stakes at issue. It would often depend on something
other than its goodness that a cause was successful

The cause of Scotland must have been well supported
at the Court of Rome, for a decided impression was made.
Something was probably due to a pretty loud participa-
tion in the national wailings, by a body who knew how to
be heard at Ronje, and whose voice would find ready
sympathy there. I'he Church of Scotland was in danger

208 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

— or rather the churchmen. King Edward thought it
would be in favour of loyalty to the house of Plantagenet
if the ecclesiastics serving in Scotland were Englishmen.
The view was no doubt a sagacious one, provided it could
be got into practical operation. The steps towards it,
however, gave alarm. In the winter of 1 297 he had sent
instructions to Brian Fitz Allan, whom he had appointed
governor, that on the occurrence of any ecclesiastical
vacancy of no higher value than forty merks annually, he
should present to it some member of the Church of
England ; or if that did not suit, any other discreet per-
son, provided he were an Englishman.* It is to be in-
ferred that to more valuable charges the king would him-
self present Lamberton, who had to fight for his bishop-
ric, and would be driven from it if the English rule were
resumed, had been consecrated by the Pope. He had
gone to France, and may have gone to Rome, in the
national cause ; and his reception there as a prelate would
make the adoption of his cause a matter of consistency.
There is so far a probability of Wallace also having been
there, that, as we have seen, he obtained credentials to
the Court of Rome ; and it does not weaken this supposi-
tion that King Edward, in his memorial to the Pope,
declared his Holiness to be under the influence of certain
"enemies of peace and sons of rebellion" residing at Rome,
According to the later chronicles, the authorised emis-
saries of Scotland were Baldred Bisset, William Eglesham,
and William, Archdeacon of Lothian. Whoever were
the working men, they achieved the first great point in
all such contests — they made those who had the duty
of getting up the details of business at the Court of Rome
thoroughly acquainted with the whole case for Scotland
against the English claims."

In the summer of 1298 there came to Edward from
Rome a preliminary hint — a paternal admonition concem-

^ Foedera (Record edition), i. 877.

' In the Scotichronicon the instructions to the representatives are
given in iiill ; but if this version of them is correct, it is clear that the
representatives, who took a different course, were much better men ol
business than their instructors at home.

DEALINGS WITH THE PAPAL COURT, 1298-1300. 209

ing changes against him of unjust aggression on Scotland
— a. document adorned by precepts, pointing towards
justice and peace and loving-kindness among Christians.
This was followed by another more to the point It
charged King Edward distinctly with a violation of the
rights and liberties of the kingdom and Church of Scot-
land, done under the false pretence of a right of superior-
ity over that kingdom. It told him that he had no excuse,
because there were palpable events of recent times incom-
patible with any such right of superiority. With great
distinctness these events were set forth : how when Henry,
the father of Edward, got assistance from his son-in-law,
the King of Scots, careful stipulations were made that the
assistance was given of favour and friendly alliance, not of
obligation ; and when Alexander did homage to Edward
himself for Tyndale and Penrith, care was taken to mark
the limitation of the homage. King Edward's failure to
take the guardianship of the infant queen on the death of
King Alexander — his duty if he really were superior of
his realm — ^was strongly put; and the details of each pre-
cedent were given in the Papal bull with a clearness and
precision which could not have been excelled by any
draftsman in Edinburgh.

There was a feature in this document which has created
some excitement among historians. The Pope declared
that the kingdom of Scotland belonged, and had of old
belonged, to the Church of Rome. This has been dealt
with as an impudent attempt on the part of the Pope to
drive the plunderer from the prey, in order that himself
might take it. But there was no intention to imitate
King Edward by annexing Scotland, either as a feudal
dependency or an absolute dominion, to the Court of
Rome ; such a project was not within the bounds of the
practicable. The meaning of the claim was, that Scotland
was a free sovereignty, with no subjection save such as
all sovereigns owed to the Church of Rome — a subjection
which that Church was of course apt to interpret more
widely than her subject sovereigns would admit. Finally,
the Pope told King Edward, that if he believed himself to
have any rights over the kingdom of Scotland, he was free

VOL. IL o

210 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

to prove them at the Holy Court, lodging there all the
laws, writings, and other things on which he founded, and
• his claims would have full consideration as those of a
valued son of the Church. This was precisely in accord-
ance with that supervision of the diplomatic relations of
the European powers which had fallen to the Church,
or rather the Court of the Church, at Rome. A great
country desirous of crushing a small one gets up a case
in its own favour, and acts on it But before the
old established landmarks of the European powers
are thus broken up, the Court of Rome chooses to
examine the case, and to give a judgment, to be carried
into effect by interdict or other ecclesiastical process. It
may not have been a sound political system, but it
put a stop to a world of oppression, and prevented the
peace of Europe from being so often disturbed as it would
have been by rapacious despots, gratifying to the utmost
their lust of power.

The Pope sent his bull to Robert Winchelsea, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, with instructions to deliver it into
the king's own liand. Never was prelate more hardly
beset. There was all the unpleasantness of conveying an
unpleasant message to a man not blessed with a placid
and forgiving temper, and there were the difficulties of the
journey — for King Edward was away at the northern
extremities of his kingdom menacing Scotland. The
archbishop recounted all his difficulties and dangers to his
master, and we thus get a glimpse of some of the physical
and social conditions caused by the war. After having
consumed several days in preparation for his formidable
journey, he set off, apparently in the summer of 1300, and
reached Carlisle in twenty days. There, to his dismay, he
found that the king had gone with his army into Gallo-
way. He met with some discreet laymen, and with
clerical persons worthy of all confidence, from whom he
found that the country swarmed with armed Scots ; and
even supposing him to get through with safety, there was
no food in it for his retinue. No one, not even among
the clergy, was zealous enough to carry a message intimat-
ing his arrival, or even endeavour to procure a safe-con-

DEALINGS WITH THE PAPAL COURT, 1298-1300. 211

duct for him. He fell at last on a shrewd device.
Remaining at Carlisle, he sent two of his retinue by sea,
who reached the army of Edward with much risk of cap)-
ture, and with like risk brought answer to his question
how he could with safety endeavour to get an audience.
The answer sent him was, that the king could suggest no
better way than this : the queen and he were on some
future day to have a meeting, and the bishop might join
escorts with her.

The prospect of this arrangement, however, was indefi-
nite, and the inducements to wait on were extremely
meagre ; for he mentions that, during nearly six weeks,
while his messengers were absent, having to be so near
the border of Scotland, he was glad to obtain sufficiency
without aspiring at abundance of food. He heard at last
that the king had come back to the Castle of Caerlaverock,
which had some time ago been taken. He then managed
to get himself and his equipage conveyed across the Sol-
way at low tide, encountering more peril than he seems to
have known of. And so the triumphant conclusion of his
adventures was, that he unexpectedly came upon the king
at dinner on the Friday after the Feast of St Bartholomew
the Apostle, or towards the end of August.

He was called next day to a solemn audience, where
the king was surrounded by the crowd of nobles and
knights who, as we shall ,see, had attended him to the
siege of Caerlaverock. The messenger read his instruc-
tions, and then reverently handed the admonitory bull of
his Holiness to his Majesty. What we would expect in
ordinary court usage is, that such a document should be
passed on to a secretary to be kept for private perusal ;
the king, however, directed the document to be publicly
read, and then gave instructions for translating it into
French. The messenger was then told that this affair of
Scotland was one of those in which it was necessary for
the king to consult the chief persons, ecclesiastical and
temporal, of his kingdom ; that although several of these
were present, many were absent; and when there had
been due and full deliberation, then would the king send
by a messenger of his own an answer to his Holiness.

212 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

The first step taken was to let loose upon the Court of
Rome the wrath of the English temporal barons. Nothing
better served to rouse them into union and patriotic action
than resistance to the encroachments of the Church, and
they sent to Rome a memorable protest against this at-
tempt to interfere with the feudal and constitutional pre-
rogatives of the crown of England. King Edward was in
the mean time anxious to prepare and set forth a convinc-
ing case in favour of his claims. He had already, as we
have seen, obtained materials from the religious houses,
but he wanted more, and their records were again ran-
sacked. Rishanger, whose notes of what was passing are
so valuable, was employed with other cunning scribes to
bring the case to perfection. The result was a production,
one of the most extraordinar}% as a state paper, to be found
on record, though people may be familiar with the greater
part of its contents in other shapes.

After setting forth that the right of superiority in the
King of England over Scotland was undoubted and noto-
rious to all the world, and had been in active exercise by
the removal and appointment of the rulers of that coun-
try at will — for the satisfaction of his Holiness, a brief
narrative is put together to show the origin and antiquity
of the right. It commences thus : —

In the time of the prophdts Eli and Samuel there was a
certain illustrious personage named Brutus. He had to
abandon Troy after the destruction of that city ; and tak-
ing with him a following of noble Trojans, the band dis-
covered a certain island, then called Albion, inhabited by
giants. These were all defeated and slain by the Trojans,
who, in honour of their chief, called the island Bruton or
Britain, and they built the town of Trinovantum, now
called London. Brutus had three sons, on whom he set-
tled his possessions. To the first-bom, Locrin, he gave
that part of Britain called England ; to the second, Al-
banac, he gave Albany or Scotland ; and to the third,
Camber, he gave Cambria or Wales. The important point
to be kept in view at this stage is, that it was the invari-
able practice of succession in Troy that the eldest and his
line should rule over the younger brothers and their de-

DEALINGS WITH THE PAPAL COURT, 1298-1300. 213

scendants. There were invasions of the new territory and
other causes of disturbance, the particulars of which are
set forth with a minuteness that seems to challenge criti-
cism ; but the result is, that as Locrinus was supreme
over his brothers at the beginning, so did his descendants
continue to be supreme over all other rulers in Albion.
We come at last down to an epoch illustrious throughout
the world by the deeds of the great King Arthur, who,
indignant at the turbulence of the Scots, signally punished
them, displaced their king, and appointed his follower
Anselm to rule over them ; and this Anselm did due
feudal homage for Scotland to his lord superior, King
Arthur, at a renowned festival held at Caerleon.

It is impossible to estimate the weight attributed to the
next precedent, without remembering that King Edward
was deeper even than his age in reverence for the later
saints and their miracles. King Athelstane of England,
it was said, had under the auspices of St John of Bever-
ley subdued a rebellion in Scotland. Having finished
his work, he prayed, through the intervention of the
same St John, that it might be granted to him to re-
ceive a visible and tangible token, by which all future
ages might be assured that the Scots were rightfully sub-
ject to the King of England. His prayer was granted in
this way : Standing in front of one of the rocks at Dun-
bar, he made a cut at it with his sword, and left a score
which proved to be the precise length of an ell, and was
adopted as the regulation test of that measure of length.
This miracle was attested by a weekly service in the
church of St John of Beverley. He was perhaps the most
powerful miracle-worker of all the English saints, and his
triumphs in this line are amply commemorated by Bede.
King Ekiward and some of his advisers would devoutly be-
lieve that this story of the miraculously-created ellwand stan-
dard would do more for his cause than his long array of his-
torical precedents ; but it may be questioned if the acute
scribes working at the Vatican conceded so much influence
to it, for they were apt to be perplexed and overburdened
by such miraculous solutions of temporal difficulties.

King Edward's pleading goes on after this rather pro-

214 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE,

taically. The story of Edgar's boat rowed by a crew of
kings on the Dee coroes in, and then the successive
events which have been alluded to in passing as points
in the dispute. After the Conquest the acts of homage
already referred to are all set forth as done for Scotland.
Perhaps the most flagrant feature in the whole case is
where the Treaty of Brigham, in which the Scots stipu-
lated with so much suspicious precision for all the special-
ties of a separate nationality, is represented as a great
national act of homage, in which the several Estates of
Scotland, moved by a sense of duty, did of their own
accord humbly approach the lord superior and devoutly
tender to him their fealty and homage. Next comes the
competition and the decision, followed by Baliol's unnat-
ural rebellion. Here the case is strengthened by an in-
dignant commentary on those outrages on the inmates of
religious houses, male and female, which were so elo-
quently charged against the Scots soldiers by the English
chroniclers, as we have seen. Nothing was said to the
invitation to lay before the Holy Court the proofs of any
claim which King Edward asserted over Scotland. After
being finally adjusted, the case for the crown of England,
bearing date the 15 th of May 1301, was transmitted to
Rome in the hands of an embassy suited to the solemnity
of the occasion.

King Edward had meanwhile been strenuously working
by special summonses, general commissions of array, and
in other ways, to gather an army sufficient for an effectual
and final invasion. Of the first blow he was enabled to
strike — the reduction of the Castle of Caerlaverock, in
Dumfriesshire — we are so fortunate as to have an ex-
trertlely instructive narrative. The accounts of the earlier
sieges of strong places of more historical eminence — Edin-
burgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, and Dundee — convey the im-
pression that they were heterogeneous works, with little
improvement on the old mounds of stone or earth ; and
it is in harmony with this supposition that no vestiges of
ihem now remain.^ Caerlaverock Castle still shows us a

^ If the remains of Dirleton be a portion of the works besieged br

SIEGE OF CAERLAVEROCK, 1300, 21 5

fine specimen of the later stage of the new system of forti-
fication brought in by the Normans, and already spoken
of as thickly strewed over England. Its strength was in
towers of fine ashlar stone-work, extremely thick, with
flanking towers to command all the wall-plates. This
siege has a special historian, who describes the castle as
shaped like a long triangular shield, with a round tower at
each of the broader angles, and two round towers flanking
the gate at the opposite point The building had subse-
quently an eventful history, and we are told of heavy in-
juries to it, and even total destruction, yet the triangular
shape is still retained by the older part ; and the gateway,
with its double tower, has ail the appearance of having
been built in Edward I.'s time.

We are told that in the year 1300, on St John's or Mid-
summer Day, King Edward held a court at Carlisle, and
ordered a general muster against the Scots. The days
were long and fine, says the chronicler, and all the moun-
tains and valleys resounded with the neighing of horses,
and were covered with waggons, sacks of provisions, tents,
and all the other furnishings of war. The assemblage of
the chivalry of England was almost unexampled in bril-
liancy, and the chronicler has preserved a roll of the
names and heraldic achievements of the leaders, which
has been a mine of wealth to adepts in heraldry in the
present day.^ The force was divided into four batailles or
squadrons, and of the leaders and principal knights in each
the historian of the siege tells us what they were in race
and chivalrous renown : thus, " Edward, King of England
and Scotland j conducted the third squadron at a little dis-
tance, and brought up the rear so closely and ably that

Bishop Beck, they must have been about as hard work as Caer-
laverock, but we have not a distinct enough account of that siege to
know.

1 * The siege of Cacrlaverock, in the 28th Edward I., A.D. MCCC,
^ith the Arms of the Earls, Barons, and Knights who were present
on the occasion,* by Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Esq. He prints the
Norman original with a translation, decorating the whole with fac-
similes of the achievements. There is another edition by lliomas
Wright, 1864, blazoned in colours.

2l6 WAR OF INDEPENDENXE.

none of the others were left behind. In his banner were
three leopards courant of fine gold set in red, fierce,
haughty, and cruel — ^thus placed to signify that, like thenu
the king is dreadful, fierce, and proud to his enemies ; for
his bite is slight to none who inflame his anger — not but
his kindness is soon rekindled towards such as seek his
friendship or submit to his power." ** An auxiliary force
was commanded by Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham,
ever at hand when there was fighting." He is described
as " the most vigilant clerk in the kingdom — a true mirror
of Christianity."

The historian admired the strength and beauty of the
castle, with its walls and ditches, and saw it was not to be
taken like a chess rook. He describes the cutting dovm
of trees and brushwood, and the building of huts to lodge
the besiegers, and the arrival of vessels in the Solway
Firth with the besieging engines. The foot-men were sent
forward to begin the siege. " Then might be seen stones,
arrows, and quarreaus to fly among them ; but so effec^
tually did those within exchange their tokens with those
without, that in one short hour there were many persons
wounded and maimed, and I know not how many killed.''
The rest became excited, and a general attack was made ;
the heaviest engines were worked in throwing stones, and
when there was a good hit a great shout arose among the
host This seems to have gone on for a day or two, until
three other engines were brought, " very large, of great
power, and very destructive, which cut down and cleave
whatever they strike — fortified town, citadel, nor barrier,
nothing is protected from their strokes." The Knight of
Kirkbride excited the admiration of the historian : " Many
a heavy crushing stone did he of Kirkbride receive, but
he placed before him a white shield with a green cross
engrailed. So stoutly was the gate of the castle assailed
by him, that never did smith with his hammer strike his
iron as he and his did there. Notwithstanding, there was
showered upon them such huge stones, quarrels, and ar-
rows, that with wounds and bruises they were so hurt and
exhausted that it was with great difiiculty they were able
to retire."

BATTLE OF ROSLIN, 1302. 2\^

Where so great was the crowd of lords and knights
that among them the chronicler blazoned more than a
hundred achievements of illustrious houses, we must infer
that the ordinary armed following was large. It was, in
fact, with an army gathered for the conquest of Scotland
that Edward besieged this remote castle on the Solway.
When surrender was announced by a flag of truce, and the
great besieging army took possession, the number of the
surrendering garrison seems to have amazed the victors ;
— ^as the historian says : " And this is the number of those
who came out of it — of persons of different sorts and
ranks — sixty men, who were beheld with astonishment ;
but they were all kept and guarded till the king com-
manded that life and limb should be given to them, and
ordered to each of them a new garment." Nothing
should be said to diminish the warlike merits of the un-
known sixty ; but the moral of the siege of Caerlaverock
is, the potency, in the hands of resolute men, of the new
system of fortification, which was just then crossing the
border and appearing in Scotland.

Immediately after the capture of Caerlaverock came
the consent to the extension of the French truce to Scot-
land, and the arrival of the Archbishop of Canterbury
with his message from the Pope, as we have seen. The
truce expired in the spring of 130 1. At that time King
Edward seems to have had the range of Scotland south of
the Forth, for his writs are dated from various places
there ; but the events of the following year show that the
Scots, who had kept the northern districts in their hands
ever since the battle of Stirling, were pressing southward.
In the autumn of 1302, an English army was sent into
Scotland under the command of John de Segrave, ai>
pointed governor of the province. He was accompanied
by an important person, Ralph de Manton, or Ralph the
Cofferer as he was called, because he was paymaster.
We are told how this army, feeling in great security, was
broken up into three divisions near Edinburgh, one under
Segrave himself being posted at Roslin. All had been in
winter quarters ; it was yet no farther on towards spring
than the month of February, and no warlike operations

21 8 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

jeem to have been expected. One day, as the English
chroniclers tell us, a boy ran into the camp, telling, that
from the top of one of the high banks abundant round
Roslin, an army might be seen close upon them. It had
come from the uplands of Peebles and Lanark, and fell on
Segrave by surprise. He was wounded, and made pri-
soner along with twenty knights. Another ol the divi-
sions came up and released the captives, but seems rather
to have suffered than to have inflicted punishment The
services of the third division, indeed, show that the others
were in flight. This division had been hearing mass, un-
disturbed by the double battle, and after it was over were
enabled to check the retreat of the other two divisions
and punish their pursuers. Ralph the Cofferer was among
the slain.

Any account we have of this affair is meagre and indis-
tinct. We must depend on the English chroniclers ; and
all we can distinctly carry from them is, that their king's
army was surprised, and had the worst part in the con-
flict, i

Into some old accounts of the battle of Roslin it has
found its way that Wallace was present and commanded
the Scots force. It may have been so, but it is not suffi-
ciently vouched to be admitted as a historical fact. The
Scots chroniclers, Wyntoun and Bower, exalt this affair
into a great battle and an eminent victory gained by the
Scots; but as they accompany it with acts of extreme
cruelty, their narrative of triumph may be abandoned
without any sacrifice of the national honour.

* Hcmingford, L 199.

21Q

CHAPTER XXII.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD,

THE PREPARATIONS FOR FINAL SUBJUGATION —THE MARCH — THE
SIEGE OF STIRLING CASTLE— INCIDENTS AND INFLUENCE OP THE
SIEGE — ATTEMPT A** A MODERATE AND CONCILIATORY POLICY —
AMNESTIES — WALLACE TO BE AN EXCEPTION — NOTICES OF HIS
MOVEMENTS — HIS CAPTURE — CARRIED AS A TROPHY TO ENGLAND
—PECULIAR POLICY IN THE FORM OF HIS TRIAL— HIS EXECUTION
— ITS EFFECT ON HIS COUNTRYMEN — ORGANISATION OF SCOTLAND
— INCORPORATIVE UNION— REPRESENTATIVES OF SCOTLAND IN A
BRITISH PARLIAMENT— REVISAL OF THE LAW— THE GREAT ORDI-
NANCE OF KING EDWARD— PREPARATIONS FOR AN INTERNATIONAL
PARLIAMENT AT CARLISLE— THE NATIONAL FEELING— EDWARD'S
IGNORANCE OF IT— BRUCE'S FLIGHT FROM LONDON TO SCOTLAND
— A NEW CHAPTER IN THE WAR OPENED — ACCOUNT OF BRUCE'S
POSITION AND CLAIMS— HIS ALLIES— THE SLAUGHTER OF THE RED
COMYN— THE ENTHRONING OF BRUCE AT SCONE — EDWARD'S PRE-
PARATIONS—HIS MARCH— HIS DEATH.

In the spring of 1303, King Edward, free of all his embar-
rassments both abroad and at Westminster, was prepared
to deal with Scotland once and for ever. He was at the
head of a great army ; there is no note of the numbers,
but it is spoken of as beyond all possible resistance.
There was in reality no resistance ; and it is noticed, as
an interruption to the king's progress at one point, that
the Castle of Brechin held out until its gallant commander
was killed on the wall. From the English chronicles we
gather that this triumphant procession reached Caithness,
and the same authority says, with the utmost brevity, that
the army went burning and devastating ; yet, though this
b said from the side of England, it is insufficiently sup-

220 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

ported.* Had there bc^n much wanton cruelty or de^
struction on Edward's march, it would have left its mark
somewhere in contemporary documents : he seems, indeed,
to have had an army too strong and well appointed to re-
quire to act the marauder; and subsequent events show
that it was not then his policy to exasperate the people.
We hear of no attacks on stragglers — no commotion or
bloodshed anywhere.

This was the second unresisted march which Edward
had made over Scotland ; and indeed the Scots War of
Independence, when once fairly commenced, becomes
remarkable, among others with a like object, in the ab-
sence of all "teasing," as old soldiers used to call the
petty conflicts which rise out of excitement and com-
bativeness without giving a prospect of definite results.
As the great king marched through the land with his fine
army, it was not the time for resistance — this must wait
its proper opportunity. Stirling Castle was the only
strength that held out King Edward passed it by both
in going northward and in returning, reserving it to be
dealt with afterwards. He made his headquarters at
Dunfermline, and he is charged with the destruction there
of a noble building — the Benedictine monastery — ^because
the Scots had desecrated it by holding their rebellious
meetings within its walls. It was an act not consistent
with his civil poHcy; but in a religious matter, such as
the dealing with the conduct of others towards an ecclesi-
astical building might be, no one could count upon King
Edward. Meanwhile he established his court at Dun-
fermline, and held it there so securely, and with such
open communication with England, that at last his newly-
married queen, Margaret of France, could safely join him,
making that progress northwards which, as we have seen,
appeared to be the only opportunity by which Archbishop
Winchelsea could fulfil the duty laid on him of delivering
the Pope's admonitory bull.

Comyn, who acted as chief guardian, and the other
leaders of independency, seem to have been able to keep

^ Ilcmiiigford, 1. 205.

SIEGE OF STIRLING, 1303. 221

free of the conqueror's path. They formed a project for
helping the defence of Stirling Castle by guarding the
Forth, after the example of Wallace. King Edward, how-
ever, flanked them by crosiSing the river, whether at the
Frew or some nearer ford, and the Scots troops dispersed,
leaving Stirling Castle to defend itself. A sad interest
surrounded this, the last spot of ground in all Scotland
that did not belong to the invader. The castle stood a
long and memorable siege. The obstinacy of the defence
is echoed by the EngHsh chroniclers in their vauntings of
the valour, skill, and engineering resources of the besieg-
ers, and their exultation at the final capture. From their
accounts of the siege we may infer that part at least of
the castle works were on the new system of fortification.
All novelties in the art of defence have their parallel in
new systems of attack. When we hear of the throwing up
of zigzag earthworks by engineers working in ditches, we
know that these are approaches to the low bastioned fort-
resses of the Vauban school ; and so when we find tall
wooden towers erected, with machinery in them for casting
missiles horizontally, we know that the tall buildings of the
Norman school of fortification are to be attacked. Against
these, with their thick walls of fine masonry, the old bat-
tering-ram of the Romans, made to drive a hole in a thin
wall, was as harmless as a child's toy. The besieger had
to meet his enemy aloft, parallel with the windows of his
towers or with the roof, and only lofty piles with great
projectile power could accomplish this. We are told that
the stones or lumps of lead cast against the wall bounded
back, leaving no mark, but those sent from above broke
through roof and vault, and did vast mischief. Besides
the strength of masonry, which was the sole difficulty at
Caerlaverock, there was another in Stirling of a very for-
midable nature in the fortress standing on the edge of a
steep rock. The engines brought up were marvels in their
day for ingenuity of device and weight of metal. There
was one that the chroniclers say could hurl stones of from
two to three hundredweight

King Edward was now sixty-five years old, yet his im-
petuous and determined spirit drove him to perpetual

222 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

activity and personal prowess in pushing this siege. He
was repeatedly hit, and the chronicles record with rever-
ence the miraculous interventions for his preservation.
On one occasion, Satan had instigated one of the Scots
to draw an arblast and aim an arrow against the Lord's
anointed, who was riding exposed in the front. A devil's
angel sped the shaft in so far that it pierced a chink of the
mail, but then one of heaven's angels came to the rescue,
and stopped it from penetrating the sacred body of the
conquering king — for it is curious to observe that it is all
along, not from the justice or holiness of his cause, but
from his success as a conqueror, that these chroniclers
treat his cause as a holy one, and denounce the resistance
it met with as unholy rebellion.

Stronger evidence still of his fixed determination to
leave no means untried for the reduction of the castle is
his bringing the lead from the roofs of churches and
religious houses in St Andrews and Brechin to be made
into weights in working the siege engines. It was sacri-
lege, as he knew and keenly felt, but it was done. No-
thing but unquestionable evidence would bring home such
an act to one who so eminently conformed to the sanctities
of his day. He authorised his son to get lead as he could^
and if not otherwise, then from the churches. There is
an item of reservation extremely curious,— care must be
taken that the altars are not uncovered.* Yet this excep-
tion did not hinder the deed from weighing heavily on his
conscience. Had there been no other testimony to the
deed, it would have been revealed by the record of the
liberal restitution which he afterwards made to the religi-
ous establishments he had so despoiled in his hour oi
emergency.*

Olifant, the governor, and his garrison, stood out

^ Stevenson, Documents, ii. 481.

' In the Liberate Roll there is an order to pay a sum amounting in
all to ninety-six pounds and fifteen shillings to the Bishop of Brechin
and the Prior of St Andrews : " Pro plumbo quod dextrahi fecimus
tam de ecclesiis quam de aliis domibus ipsorum Episcopi et Prions
apud Breghyn et Sanctum Andream. " — Cited Scalacronica, Introd*iO*
titm, xvii.

SIEGE OF STIRLING, 1303. 223

against this desperate and unceasing work for more than
three months. Yet the immediate presence of starvation,
rather than the success of the assailants, seems to have
driven them to ask for stipulated terms. The request was
refused ; they must surrender at discretion. When the
garrison came forth they were only 140 men. Some
twenty-four of superior rank appeared before the conqueror
half naked, with ropes round their necks, and performed
the humiliating ceremony exacted at that time from con-
quered garrisons.

With true Norman pedantry, a notary public of the holy
Roman Empire docketed the act of submission as having
taken place before himself and certain famous witnesses
on the 24th of July, and on the eve of the Feast of St
James the Apostle, in a valley, through which passed a
road leading to a gate in the Castle of Stirling, within the
kingdom of Scotland and diocese of St Andrews.^

A touch of generous sympathy with the courage and
dutiful endurance of these men seems to have reached the
heart of the victor, and instead of ordering them for
death, as all seem to have expected, he dispersed them in
English prisons. King Edward felt so much beholden to
those barons who had borne the brunt of the siege that
he made a roll of merit, containing the names of Warenne,
Lincoln, Gloucester, and others, all of whom were invited
to make application to him for some special gift, or other
reward for their services.'^

But in truth his leniency to this garrison was one of the
examples of a new policy towards Scotland which experi-
ence had taught him. Strengthening his hand to the
utmost, he would yet lay it on gently, if not winningly.
He was no Nero or Domitian, luxuriating in the mere
lust of power, and besotting himself in bloody orgies. His
ambition was to be an organiser and reformer — in his own
way a benefactor to his race — and this passion was the

^ Fcedera (Record edition), i. 965. The chief accounts of the siege
are to be found in Hemingford, Matthew of Westminster, and Lang*
toft.

^ Palgrave*s Illustrations, cxxviii. 275.

224 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

real source of his severities. He saw before him the splen-
did vision of the British Isles under one scheme of strong
orderly central government, blessing all classes of the com-
munity ; and his fury when thwarted — his rage against the
obstinate self-willed barbarians who baffled his wise pro-
jects^-drove him to cruelty. He had now found that his
l^rojects, so far as Scotland was concerned, would thrive
better under a milder policy, and, with one grand exception,
he resolved to conciliate those even who had been in arms
against him.

Before Stirling Castle was taken there had been a
regular capitulation of the government and official staff
who had professed to rule Scotland in the name of King
John. It was solemnly ratified, in the presence of certain
commissioners from the King of England, at Strathorde, on
the 9th of February 1304. The names in this treaty deserve
note as being those of the chief persons belonging to the
Norman or Normanised aristocracy, who had been induced
to cast their lot into the popular cause. They were
Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, the acting guardian and gover-
nor, and Sir John Soulis, the Steward of Scotland, Wishart,
Bishop of Glasgow, David de Graham, Alexander de
Lyndesey, and Simon Fraser. These were to retain their
lives, liberties, and estates ; but to each there was assigned
a nominal punishment, generally a short exile on parole —
it was a mere mark put upon them as rebels received to
mercy. There was one great exception — ^William Wallace,
who was to remain at the king's will and grace. Whether
the others who were parties to die transaction knew what this
meant, it is impossible to say.^ Nor can we tell whether,
if he had delivered himself up and sought mercy, he would
have found it.

^ " Et quant a Monsieur Guilliam de Galeys est acorde qil se mette
en la volunte et en la grace nostre Seigneur le Roy, si lui semble que
bon soit." — Ryle/s pleadings in Parliament, where the original docu-
ment is printed as *' Forma pads Scocise in adventu Johannis le
Comyn et aliorum," 369-371. Some of the papers connected with
the negotiation are given in Palgrave's Illustrations, 203. They
bring in two other names of persons admitted to terms — Thomas de
I3ois and Sir John Mowbray.

FATE OF WALLACE, 1305. 225

Those who were thus received to mercy, even lo favour,
had thoroughly committed themselves in arms — in rebel-
lion, as it was counted — against the king. We must go
furtlier, therefore, than any question about the mere extent
of personal criminality attributed to each. The men be-
longing to the class of Norman barons had yielded to
temptation and gone over to the popular cause in Scotland,
instead of holding by their legitimate lord. But in feudal
notions there was some palliation for what they did. They
had lost the protection to which they were entitled in
return for the fealty. The popular party had virtually
taken Scotland from the hands of Edward, and their
interests lay with the power that could command their
estates. Now the power of Edward was effectually restored,
and they might be counted on to return to their natural
position. Wallace, on the other hand, was the one great
representative of the popular nationality, the real difficulty
with which King Edward felt that he had to deal in Scot-
land. He was going to deal with it moderately and
leniently, but he would show, in the first place, a terrible
warning to those who might obstinately stand in the way
of his projects.

Whether Wallace had been absent in France or Italy
soon after the battle of Falkirk, he was in Scotland during
these proceedings. There are faint traces of his keeping
to inaccessible districts, with an armed following, and it is
quite natural that some of his old followers should gather
round him.^

^ There is a very tantalising reference to his motions in a collec-
tion of miscellaneous fragments from the Public Records of England,
printed in 1865. It is called '* Calendarium Genealogicum," and con-
sists of such notices of persons and families, with their possessions, as
are found in the proceedings of inquests on succession of heirs, bound-
aries of estates, and the like. Among these comes up, on Wednes-
day after the commemoration of the beheading of John the Baptist, in
the 33d year of Edward I. — that is to say, in the beginning of Sep-
tember 1305 — an inquest held at Perth by Malice, Earl of Stratheani,
custodier of the northern districts in vScotland. This inquest appears
to have been transmitted to some tribunal in England as the excuse
of a certain Michael de Miggel, whose attendance was due, but not
given. It was sworn to on oath that he had been seized by \Villiam

VOL. IL P

226 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE,

The capture of Wallace was now the chief immediate
object of King Edward. Presently after the siege of
Stirling, we find him exhorting those who had just experi-
enced his clemency to aid him in this good work, and
promising that it would be profitable to him who should
be successful, either in the shortening of his exile, or in
some other shape. ^ Wallace was found in Glasgow. The
chief person concerned in his capture — the leader, as it
would appear, of the party told off for that duty — was
Alexander de Monteith. Of certain rewards given to the
captors, he had the largest share. As his name was after-
wards a common one in Scotland, it became part of the
romance of Wallace's career that he was betrayed by a
feriOw-countr)anan and an old companion in arms; but
Monteith was in the service of Edward: he held the
responsible post of Governor of Dumbarton Castle, and it
seems likely that he only performed a duty — whether an
agreeable one or not.^ The captive was taken southwards,
and on the 2 2d of August carried through London, at-

le Waleys by force of arms — he, the said Michael, not consenting to
such seizure. He had made his escape, and, in fact, got some two
leagues off, when certain armed men, accomplices of the said Waleys,
brought him back to their leader, who threatened to kill him if he
attempted again to escape. He did in fact, however, again run away,
and got three leagues oflf and more, when he was again caught, suffer-
ing great violence and injury from his captors ; and on this occasion
he verily believes that Waleys would have slain him, but for the
intervention of some of his accomplices : so was Michael de Miggel
prevented from attending according to his duty. The time at which
he was thus seized is no otherwise indicated than by dudum, which
may be translated '* lately.'' The question is, whether the dudum can
be stretched more than seven years to reach the time when Wallace
was in power, or must be held to refer to incidents a few weeks or
months before the date of the inquest, which was held just a few
davs after Wallace's execution. — Calendarium Genealogicum, 703.

^ Palgrave's Illustrations, cxxix., 276.

* In me curious scrap/S preserved by Sir Francis Palgrave, there is
a jotting, probably from some Treasury memoranda or scrolls, of forty
merks to the valet who spied out Wallace, and sixty merks to be
divided among the other captors. Then follows : ** De la terre, c'est
a savoir C livres pour Johan de Meneteth," p. cliv and 295.

Langtoft says the actual securing of Wallace was effected through
treason of John Short, his man. This may or may not be the name

FATE OF WALLACE, 1305. 22/

tended, like Caractacus in Rome, by a great crowd of
citizens. He was secured in a house belonging to a
citizen of London, William de Leyre — in Farringdon as it
would seem.

A special commission was issued to five persons, three
of them to be a quorum, to act as justiciars in the king's
charge against William Wallace. I'hey were John de Se-
grave, Peter Maluree, John de Bacuelle, Ralphe de Sand-
wye, and John le Blound, Lord Mayor of London. He was
put on trial in Westminster Hall, on a bench at the east
end, as the chronicles say. They give, too, a story diffi-
cult to account for, how there was a wreath or coronet of
laurels placed round his head on the occasion. The rea-
son given for this is, that he had boasted in his triumphs,
that he would wear a crown in London — and so his boast
was fulfilled. Anything more unlike the character shown
in Wallace's career cannot easily be conceived. Yet, on
the other hand, it is not consistent with the practical
and grave character of King Edward that he should have
played this fantastic trick without a sufficient reason.

It brings us closer to the point to look at the few traces
we have of the accusation and judgment A deep policy
runs through the form adopted. The captive was not to
be treated as a prisoner of war at the disposal of the ex-
ecutive ; he was to be regularly tried on indictment as a
subject of the King of England who had committed cer-
tain offences. He was not, however, permitted to plead

of the " vallet qui espia William de Wallaise '* in the Palgrave Frag-
ments.

This story of Langtoft's is the earliest in which the seizure of Wal'
lace is attributed to treachery. With the chronicler, however, the
event points a moral, in showing how it is the fate of murderers,
thieves, traitors, and other criminals to be betrayed by their acoom*
pUces in crime : —

*' A Jhesu whan thou wille hou rightuis is thi mede.
That of the wrong has gilt, the endyng may thei drede.
William Waleis is nomen, that maister was of theves.
Tithing to the kyng his cowen^ that robber mischevos ;
Sir John of Mentest served William so nehi,
He tok him when he wend lest, on nycht his leman li—
That was throught treson of Jack Short his man,
He was the encnesen, that Sir John so him nam."

— Langtoft's Chronicle, 329.

228 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

to the indictment, because it was utterly adverse to the la#
of England that an outlawed person who had not been
received to the king's peace should be permitted to plead.
This method gained a judicial precedent for trying a native
of Scotland before an English tribunal for oiTences com-
mitted in Scotland against the King of England, and it as
completely stopped all inconvenient discussion as if the
prisoner had been knocked on the head when he was
taken.

In charging the prisoner with treason and rebellion
against him, King Edward puts forth no better claim to
his allegiance than that of conquest He had subjugated
by force of arms John Baliol, with his magnates, ecclesias-
tical and secular, and the whole community of Scotland ;
and after he had so conquered the countryand reduced it to
his peace, this Wallace, the prisoner under trial, had arisen
and striven against him. It was further stated against the
accused that he had worked to bring the community of
Scotland under the authority of the King of France, whom
they were to assist in the destruction of England. Then
came a rapid denunciation of the raid into the northern
counties of England, with the scandals of rapine, cruelty,
and sacrilege with which, as we have seen, the English
chroniclers burden it ; and indeed it would seem that these
chroniclers took their tone from the tenor of the indict-
ment against Wallace. To these accusations the terms
of the sentence respond in a shape as grotesque as it is
horrible. The traitor's doom of disembowelling during
life is awarded ; and this reason is specially given for
it, that it is to be symbolical, in the destruction by fire of
those inner organs which prompted him to the sacrilegi-
ous burning of the shrines and reliquaries in which were
preserved the body of Christ and the bodies and relics
of saints.^

^ '* £t postea pro immensa vilitate, quam Deo et sacrosanctse eccle-
sine fecit, comburendo ecclesias vasa et feretra in quibus corpus Christi
et corpora sanctorum et reliquiae earundem collocabuntur, cor hepar et
pulmo, et omnia interiora ipsius Willelmi, a quibus tam perversae co«
gitationes processerunt, in ignem mittantur et comburentur." The
** corpus Ciiristi *' meant, we may suppose, the consccraleU elements.

FATE OF WALLACE, 1305. 229

There was also to be a symbolical application of the
parts of the body uabumt They were to be distributed
over England and Scotland, in token that his crimes had
been committed not solely against our lord the king, but
against the whole population both of England and Scot-
land : wherefore his head was to be placed on London
Bridge ; one quarter was to be suspended on a gibbet in
Newcastle-on-Tyne, another was to be exposed at Berwick,
a third at Stirling, and the fourth at Perth. The sentence
was executed on the 23d of August, and it is one of the
kind about which ordinary people generally entertain a
hope that the humble ministers of justice who give effect
to it lag behind the cruel spirit of the law, if they do not
even take occasion to soften the letter of it.

The death of Wallace stands forth among the violent
ends which have had a memorable place in history. Pro-
verbially such acts belong to a policy that outwits itself.
But the retribution has seldom come so quickly, and so
utterly in defiance of all human preparation and calcula-
tion, as here. Of the bloody trophies sent to frighten a
broken people into abject subjection, the bones had not
yet been bared, ere they became tokens to deepen the
wrath and strengthen the courage of a people arising to
try the strength of the bands by which they were bound,
and, if possible, break them once and for ever.^

King Edward was already busily carrying out his new
policy. It was much of the nature of a partly federal,
partly incorporating union. There was to be one king
over the whole island, and one great council or parliament.
The crown was to be represented in Scotland by a gover-
nor or lieutenant. He was to be assisted by a council —
not of the nature of a parliament with a deliberative voice,
but a small body selected by the crown to give advice in

^ Tt is singular that among the many records of the period so care-
fully preserved there is none of the process against Wallace. The
above account has been taken from an unauthenticated manuscript,
bearing to be a copy of the principal parts of the record of proceed-
ings, which has been preserved, and is printed m the Wallace Papers,
p. 189. It bears marks of authenticity, which are strengthened bv a
comparison of its contents >\nth the shorter accounts in the chronicler

230 WAR or INDEPENDENCE.

aid of the executive government In the selection of that
council the king showed his reliance on the co-operation
of the great churchmen and barons in his new plan. The
council selected by him all bore titles thoroughly Scotch,
and among them were some of those who had but just
laid down their arms and accepted of his clemency.^

In an English parliament which assembled early in the
year 1305, the king called for the advice of the Bishop of
Glasgow, the Earl of Carrick, and John de Mowbray, on
arrangements for having Scotland represented in a parlia-
ment to be afterwards called. These advisers reported on
some matters of detail and practicability ; it would not, for
instance, be practicable to have meetings for election
before next Ascension-day, nor could those chosen be
well in attendance at London until after the Feast of the
Nativity of St John the Baptist, or midsummer. The
amount of representation to be conceded to Scotland was
then settled, and, if we are to believe the record, was an
echo of the report presented by the three advisers. There
were to be in all ten representatives : there were to be two
selected by the prelates, two by the abbots, two by the
earls, two by the barons, and two by the community or
commonalty— one for the district north, the other for the
district south, of the Forth. The advisers recommended
that these representatives should be refunded their per-
sonal expenses for attendance in England; and it was
directed that these should be paid by the lieutenant and
treasurer of Scotland out of the funds at their disposal.
Writs were then issued for the attendance of the electoral
colleges, as they would be called on the Continent, at
Perth, to appoint representatives to attend the king's par-
liament in London within three weeks after St John's
Day.*

' ** The council were— the Bishops of St Andrews, Dunkeld, Aber-
deen, and Ross ; the Abbots of Melrose, Cupar, Jedburgh, and Dun-
fermline ; Bruce, Earl of Carrick ; the Earls of March, Buchan,
Athole, and Ross; Sir Jfohn Comyn, Sir John de Mowbray, Sir
Alexander de Argyle, Sir John Monteith, Sir Duncan de Fren*
draught, and Sir John de Inchmarlin."-— Palgrave's Documents, cllL,
292.

* Ryley's Pleadings, 241, 279.

ANNEXATION OF SCOTLAND, 1304-5. 23 1

The representatives chosen under this franchise were
tlie Bishops of St Andrews and Dunkeld, the Abbots ol
Cupar and Melrose, and the Earls of Buchan and March.
For the barons, they were John de Mowbray and Robert
Keith ; and for the commonalty^ Adam Gordon and John
of Inchmartin. Unfortunately we have no information as
to the form and method of this general election.

When the parliament assembled for business, whicli was
not until the month of September, the representatives for
Scotland were all there, save the Earl of March. The
king appointed John de Monteith to serve in his stead.
Twenty of the English members were appointed to act
with them in a joint committee of conference, and the
fruit of their deliberations was the issuing of a royal ordi-
nance for the government of Scotland.^

The ordinance begins with the appointrnent of John of
Bretagne as guardian or lieutenant of Scotland. The
offices of chancellor, chamberlain, and comptroller are
next filled. Six justices are to be appointed — two for the
districts south of the Forth, two for the districts between
the Forth and the Grampians, and two for the north.
It is decided that the resident sheriffs shall be either
natives of Scotland or Englishmen ; they are to be ap-
pointed by the crown, and removable at pleasure, and are
to be men of position, capable of good service to king and
people. This rule would have been equally distinct had
nothing been said about national qualification for the
office ; but the mention of natives of Scotland, even in
this dubious fashion, had something in it of a soothing
tendency; and it is repeated in reference to other offices,
such as that of the Coroner, soon afterwards dropped out
of use in Scotland. Special order was taken for the dis-
posal of places of strength, and governors were appointed
to them.

After the adjustment of the official establishment, the
state of the law comes up for consideration, fbe pld

1 *• Oaionnance faite uar Edouard Koi d'Angleterre sur le gon-
vemement de la terre d Escosse," in the first volume of the §cQti
Acts. This is the most authentic versiqn of the ordinance. It hai
generally been cited from Kyley, p. 503.

232 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

code of laws of the Brets and Scots is to be cancelled, as
unsuited to the civilisation of the period.* When the
lieutenant or governor returns to Scotland he is to take
counsel of the good men of the country, and to prepare
and submit to the king a report on the laws sanctioned
by King David, and any additions made to them in later
times. Such things as are found contrary to the law of
God and to sound reason are to be rejected. The lieu-
tenant and his advisers may find some on which they can-
not come to, or will not venture on, a conclusion on
account of their importance. These they are to report to
the king as matters undecided, along with their report on
those parts of the laws and customs of Scotland which
they recommend for adoption in permanence. The ordi-
nance, after these general provisions as to the laws which
are to be in force in Scotland, puts some restraints on
dangerous persons, and gives a general power and recom-
mendation to the lieutenant, with the counsel of the
good men of the land, to send troublesome persons into
England, where they will have to abide southward of the
Trent.

The ordinance is not a logical or methodical document.
It mixes up the broadest projects of legislation and ad-
ministration with mere personal interests and arrange-
ments. But it bears the impression of a high intelligence
and a far foresight, mellowed by beneficence and even
kindliness. The author of it sees that, once brought to-
gether, without violence or goadings to national antipathy,
the two nations would naturally co-operate and fuse into
one compact empire ; and no one could be more alive to
the mighty destinies that such an empire might have to
look to. Had he begim in this spirit, there are many
things to render it credible that he might have been suc-
cessful. A nationality distinct from and antagonistic to
that of the English people had not been made before the
death of Alexander III. The Scots looked to King
Edward with a paternal feeling, and had a leaning to the
English institutions. Of these they were never afraid;

^ Sec chap. xvi.

ANNEXATION OF SCOTLAND, 1304-5. 233

and if they could have felt assured of retaining such
freedom of action as these or their own native institu-
tions gave, they would not have been apprehensive oi
innovation. What they dreaded was the prerogative
power, royal and baronial, which the Normans brought by
innovation on the original laws and customs of England.
In the discussion of the succession, and in the military
occupation of the country, these were set, in their most
offensive shape, face to face with the people of Scotland.
Throughout the twelve years' contest, too, they were re-
minded over and over again of those innovations, with
which their neighbours were still at war. They knew that
when the King of England found difficulty in gathering a
sufficient force for crushing them, it was because he was
haggling with his own people about demands for the
renewal of the Great Charter and the limitation of the
Forest Laws ; and these reiterated demands were nothing
but the lamentation and denunciations of the people of
England for the rights and liberties of which they deemed
they had been robbed.

For twelve years Scot and Englishman had drawn each
other's blood ; it was long enough of such work to make
a national hostility. Conciliation came too late. It may
be questioned if Edward knew this. He was preparing
for a great union parliament at Carlisle, where more still
was to be done for the fusion of the two nations. The
administration of business in Scotland seems to have been
going on quietly and regularly. The king, now nearing
seventy years of age, might have reason to expect a peace-
ful evening to his stormy life, gladdened with the reflec-
tion that, if his treatment of Scotland had at first been
marked by a necessary hardness, he had moulded his
acquisition for the attainment of a goodly future by acts
of mercy and justice. Whatever were the dreams of the
conqueror and pacificator, he was suddenly awakened
from them. One day in the beginning of February 1306,
Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, was missed at court,
and it was found that he was off for Scotland. It was
clear that a new act in the drama of the Scots conquest
had opened.

»34 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

Before following the adventurer on his career, let us
look at the position in which recent events had ])laced
hinL We have seen the figure made by his grandfather,
fifteen years earlier, as a competitor for the crown before
the court established by King Edward as lord superior.
The grandson was bom in 1274, and so would be a young
man some seventeen years old when his grandfather was
pleading before King Edward for the kingdom of Scot-
land, or for a part of it if he could not get the whole.
The intermediate Bruce, the son of the competitor, was a
quiet unambitious man. He went to the wars in Pales-
tine — ^but in that he was only conforming himself to the
usage of the day ; and when he returned he lived peace-
ably in the enjoyment of his wealth and honours. He
was known, indeed, for nothing else so remarkable as his
romantic marriage to the mother of the hero.^ He was
but for a short time head of the house. His father died

^ The following is a fair rendering of the accounts which the chron-
iclers give of this incident : —

"As the Scots had declared their readiness to sustain their part in
the crusade, it was incumbent upon them to fulfil their promises, and
accordingly several of their principal nobles, assuming the cross,
departed with their followers tor Palestine. Amongst the number of
crusaders who never lived to return was Adam de lulconcath, Earl of
Carrick in right of his wife, Marjory, the heiress of the late Earl
Nigel. About two years after the death of Earl Adam, his youthful
widow was engaged in a hunting excursion, with a gay and gallant
company of ladies and esquires in attendance, when a handsome
cavalier of noble and distinguished appearance cantered across her
path. The countess saluted the knisnt, and as the courtly manners
of the day required, he returned the lady's greeting according to the
agreeable custom of the age, but excused himself from joining in the
chase, untU Marjory, unaccustomed to refusal, laying her hand upon
the bridle, turned his horse's head with gentle force, and galloped off
with her captive to Tumberry Castle. The countess had secured her
prize ; and after a fortnight's imprisonment in the lady's bower, the
young heir of Annandale and Cleveland capitulated, and became the
husband of his adventurous captor. Alexander was furious at such a
breach of feudal decorum, threatening, as a punishment, to confiscate
the earldom ; but he suffered himself to be appeased by the entreaties
of their mutual friends, and contented himself with levying a con-
siderable fine upon the enamoured delinquents. The eldest son of
this singular and romantic love-match was the illustrious Robert
Bruce. "—Robertson's Early Kings, ii. 109, 11a

BRUCE AND COMYN, 1305-6. 235

in 1295, and he died about ten years afterwards. It is
said that during his lifetime he transferred his estate and
title of Carrick to his son ; but this- was his wife's inherit-
ance, and may have gone to her son by the nature of the
investiture. The father is thus, in the narratives of the
time, called Lord of Annandale, and the son Earl of
Carrick until the father's death.

King Edward did his best to train the young man in
his own court as an Anglo-Norman baron. The king
seems to have had a fellow-feeling for his ardent, hardy
nature, and to have looked forward to distinguished ser-
vices from a retainer of such mettle ; but was he to be a
retainer? Throughout their intercourse there are ever
symptoms of uneasiness and uncertainty about young
Bruce shown by Edward and his chief advisers. Thus,
when the disturbances under Baliol's short reign began,
the Bishop of Carlisle sent for Bruce as a measure of pre-
caution, and perhaps of kindness, and got him to take
special oaths of allegiance. On that occasion he was
accused of unworthily, for the purpose of demonstrating
his loyalty, attacking the lands and household of Douglas
as a supporter of Wallace. The Bruces were decidedly at
that time Edward's men; and it is even said that their
estates were nominally forfeited by Baliol's government as
those of enemies to their country. As a retainer of the
court and an English noble, young Bruce ever received
encouragement from Edward, who, on the other hand,
naturally repressed his influence as a great feudal lord in
Scotland. For instance, among his possessions in Aber-
deenshire, Bruce held Kildrummy and its castle. The
ruins of that building show it to have been a great castle,
of enormous strength for the period, constructed on the
new system of fortification which, during Edward I.'s
time, penetrated into Scotland, and it is probable that it
was built by the Bruces. It did not suit King Edward's
views that this strength should be at the absolute disposal
of its lord, and so he required by the ordinance fur the
government of Scotland that it should be committed to
proper hands.

Nothing was likely to make Bnicc forget the tradition

236 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

of his house, that his grandfather had been nominated
heir to the crown by King Alexander and his parliament ;
and the pleas on which that grandfather pleaded his right
of succession were as strong as ever. The other compet-
ing families had all dropped out of the contest save the
Comyns, but they were formidable rivals. Comyn the
competitor, as we have seen, had a claim which could only
stand after Baliors, since they were descended of two
sisters, and Comyn of the younger. Baliol was now out
of the field, not merely by the feudal proceedings taken
against him by King E^dward, but by a voluntary resigna-
tion of his right of inheritance. Supposing this to be
effectual, and no one gainsaid it, it removed the line of
succession to which that of the Comyns was subsidiary.
But further, Comyn the competitor married a sister of
Baliol, and their son, called the Red Comyn, had thus an
additional claim to represent the rights of the deposed
king.* Then there was a mysterious tradition of his de-
scent from Donald Bane of the old royal line ; and though
this went for nothing before the court of the lord superior,
it might avail with a people eager to be led against their
enemy and craving for a leader. Here then, altogether,
Bruce had a formidable rival.*

Comyn's demonstrations for the national cause had
been much stronger than Bruce's. He was with the host
that swept the northern counties of England, and he
afterwards acted as guardian or governor of Scotland, and

^ A chronicler who was born about this time says: "Jolian dc
Haillof avoit iii sores, la primer, Margaret la dame de Gillisland, la
second fust dame de Counsy, la tierce avoit Johan Comyn a marry,
pier cely qi Robert Bruis tua a Donfres.'* — Scaiacronica, 121.

* There were several wealthy and powerful families of the name of
Comyn in Scotland, but John, Lord of Badenoch, was the historical
Comyn, from his connection with royalty. It may be well to keep
him distinct from another veiy powerful lord of the name, John, Earl
of Buchan, the Constable of Scotland, who seems to have been a
steady follower of King Edward. Supposing that in the reign of
Alexander III. the several families of tne name of Comyn had acted
together in a group, it would appear that, chanees in the lapse of time
separating them from each other, their descendants eacA followed his
own policy.

BRUCB AND COMYN, 1305-6. 237

presented a hostile front to Edward on his invasion. We
have seen that for all this there was but a nominal inflic-
tion laid on him, and he was received to favour. He was
of the Norman school, not likely to feel any national an-
tipathy to the supremacy of Edward, and it may be that
his master could ill afford to quarrel with one who could
be so effective a rival to the unsatisfactory Bruce.

We have seen that Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews,
was a zealous partaker with Wallace in his struggle for
the purely national party. Whether it was by the bishop's
advice or not, Bruce met him at the Abbey of Cambus-
kenneth, the scene of Wallace's great victory, in June
1304, and there the two entered into a league with each
other, which was put in writing and sealed and authenti-
cated by all the solemnities of the period ; it is the earli-
est existing specimen of a kind of document which we
shall frequently meet with afterwards. There are no en-
gagements as to any distinct course of action, but the two
bind themselves to general co-operation. Having dis-
cussed possible future perils, they resolve to aid and com
fort each other when these come to pass. They are to
stand by each other against all enemies ; if either hears of
any danger to the other, immediate warning is to be sent
and co-operation given in averting it ; most material clause
perhaps of all — neither is to undertake any serious affair
without taking counsel with the other. They bind them-
selves to this obligation by solemn oath. At the same
time, as in any such modem contract for the supply of
certain goods as a court of law would give effect to, either
party failing to keep the engagement is to be subject to a
pecuniary penalty — it is fixed at ten thousand pounds.
The purpose it was to be put to when secured, takes us
back from the attorney's style-book to the age and its
conditions. The money was to be applied for the re-
covery of the Holy Land, and be dropped into the great
fund lost in the crusades.^

There was much more in such a document than it ex-

' Lord Hailes seems to have Iteen aware of this document (I 342).
\i is given at length by Sir Francis Palgrave. — Documents, 323.

238 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

pressed. Subsequent events show that Lamberton repre*
sented the feeling of the churchmen, who had their own
ecclesiastical independence to protect, and had already
felt that the King of England would fain displace them
for English subjects on whose conformity and co-operation
he could rely. Then the allegiance of the Church to
Bruce meant a great deal more than spiritual or ecclesias-
tical support, important as that might be. The religious
houses held large baronies, and could call out a great pro-
portion, probably not much less than a third, of the fighting
men of the country. It would be serious, then, for both
parties, if rumours of such an alliance should reach King
Edward's ears. In fact it became known that he had
taken Bruce in a very menacing manner to task about
some document to which he had become a party. There
can be little doubt that it was the bond, for we know
that Exlward had the original, of it in his hand, and it is
on record that the other party, the bishop, was closely
questioned about it.^ It is said that Edward, having on
the same day made rather free with the wine-flask, dropped
words which showed that Bruce was in imminent danger
of his life. A friend at court, the Earl of Gloucester, as
it was said, sent him a symbolical warning — a sum of
money and a pair of spurs. Bruce took the hint, and re-
solved to be off by morning. He took two followers with
him. There was snow on the ground, and to baffle any
attempt to track him out of London, he had the horses
shod in the reverse of the usual manner, so that the marks
might seem those of horses on their way to town. Some
of these particulars are traditional, and so is the story that
the three met and slew a messenger whom they found
on his way to court with dangerous papers from Comyn.
Bruce halted at Dumfries. He must have known that he
would find Comyn there — in fact the English judges were
sitting in assize in the town ; and the presence of two
barons who had lands in the neighbourhood would create
no surprise, but might be set down as a demonstration of

^ Sir Francis Palgrave gives the bond and the cross-questioning of
the bishop as certified in a notarial instrument. — Documents, jiij.

SLAUGHTER OF COMYN, 1306. 239

loyal duty. The two met in the church of the Minorites
or Grey Friars. Their conversation came to high words.
It is difficult to have clear evidence of what is said on such
occasions, but we know the rumour of the day as to the
nature of the conversation, and it was this : Bruce spoke
of the miserable prospect of Scotland, once a sovereign
state, now nothing but a province of England, and showed
how they two, powerful as they were, if they would work
in common, might restore the old kingdom. He then
made an offer. Take my estates and help me to be king,
or, if you prefer it, I shall take yours and support your
claim. Com)m objected, professing duty and loyalty to
King Edward.^ Bruce charged him with betraying cer-
tain secrets of his, probably the bond with Lamberton ;
and then, as the talk became fiercer and fiercer, Bruce
drew his dagger and dealt the other a blow. When he
came forth and joined his friends they saw that something
was amiss, for it was a question of sacrilege, far more
serious than murder. Bruce said there was something
much amiss ; he feared he had slain Comyn ; and thereon
one of his followers named Kilpatrick, who would have
no doubts about such a matter, said, ** I mak sikar " — I
make secure — and slew the wounded man outright*
Comyn's uncle was killed beside him. At this their first
taste of blood a sort of frenzy seems to have seized on
the party, and they immediately attacked the place where
the English judges were sitting. These, astounded by the
suddenness and ferocity of the onset, and knowing that
they were in a country never safe, surrendered. To make

* Such is the account given by Sir Thomas Grey, the Northumbrian
knight already referred to (p. 184), a man likely to be well informed.
— Scalacronica, 130 ; Leland, Collectanea, 502.

* The crest of the Kilpatricks or Kirkpatricks of Closebum is a
hand with a dagger erect in pale dropping blood, and their motto is,
*• I mak sikar.'' The late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, one of the
gentlest beings that ever existed so far as anything like physical vio-
lence was concerned, stood sturdily up for this story and his own
descent from the perpetrator. See the notes he supplied to Scott's
* Lord of the Isles,' on

** Vain Kirkpfttnck's bloody dirk,
Milking fure of murder's work."

540 WAR OF INDKPENDENCE.

captives of them would be inconvenient, and they were
driven across the border.

This was an unpropitious beginning, but it was more
emphatic than even the crossing of the Rubicon, and left
no alternative but to go on. The sacrilege was a serious
blot, which would be employed to its utmost at Rome and
elsewhere, but it was not irremediable. There are many
symptoms that the Scots people of that day were not
ardent devotees of religion, or as some people, looking to
the kind of religion then prevalent, would call it, of super-
stition. The charges made, both in the chronicles of the
day and in the state papers, against the Scots as a blas-
phemous and unholy people, given to sacrilege, would not
have been so steadily reiterated if there had not been
some ground to hold them a people less religiously in-
clined, at all events, than the English. The question how
far the desecration of the church would tell at Rome
would be easily decided by consulting the friendly Lam-
berton ; and he from the first seems to have felt no diffi-
culty about putting the matter right.

The news that a stand had been made against the
English invaders flew like wildfire over Scotland, and the
people rose so tumultuously and threateningly that £kl-
ward's English servants, save where they were protected
by fortifications, were glad to hurry out of the country.
Bruce immediately took up his headquarters in his own
Castle of Lochmaben. The remains still visible show us
a building of that age raised on the new and formidable
system of fortification which had come over from England.
Two hundred miles farther north, in his earldom of Mar,
he had his other castle of the same kind, Kildrummy, and
he does not appear to have yet given it into other keeping,
according to King Edward's order. We must count that
a great part of Bruce's subsequent success depended on
his holding for some time these strong fortresses.

The way being clear, it was resolved t6 take a decided
step, and solemnly inaugurate Bruce as King of Scotland,
according to the old traditional forms of such an occasion,
so far as these could be effected. The ceremony dates
on the 27th of March, some six weeks after the slaughter of

CROWNING OF BRUCE, 1306. 24 1

Comyn ; and the place chosen for it was the Ch&pel Royal
of Scone, sacred from time immemorial to the inauguration
of the Kings of the Scots. The old Stone of Destiny was
absent, so were the crown — ^if there was one — and the royal
robes. For the sacred stone there could be no substitute;
but the Bishop of St Andrews contrived to make some show
of other pomps from his episcopal wardrobe. Besides the
influence of the Stone of Destiny, there was another time-
honoured element in the complete investment of a King of
Scots which was supplied in a curious way. It was the
office and privilege of the Clan Macduff to place the crown
on the royal head. So absolute was this, that when, at
the coronation of John Baliol, the head of the house oi
Macduff was a minor, the appointment of a substitute to
act for him was an affair of ceremonial difficulty. He
had now reached manhood, but there might be many
reasons why his attendance could not be obtained on such
a sudden emergency. His sister was married to the Earl
of Buchan, a stanch retainer of King Edward. She set
off for Scone and arrived in time enough to perform the
mystic functions of the Clan Macduff when, as it would
appear, the ceremony had been completed so far as it
could without her aid. The English chroniclers say that
she drew largely on her husband's stables, and clattered
through the country at the head of a noble cavalcade.
There were other surmises and suspicions, but they seem
to have no better foundation than the strangeness of the
act The most charitable interpretation that the English
chroniclers could give it was that the natural had got the
better of the domestic sympathies. But there was some
influence more distinct than this that cannot now be traced^
We cannot understand the full compass of the veneration,,
superstition, or whatever else it might be called, that, oa
the one side, gave the use of the fatal stone and the services
of the Clan Macduff a popular influence over the country,
and, on the other, prompted the heroic Countess to do the
act she did, with all its strangeness and all its perils.^
These events, treading on each other's heels, were

^ See on the Clan MacdufTand the Stone of Destiny, above, p. 174^
VOL. II. Q

242 WAR OF INDEPENDENXE.

astounding news to King Edward. He must have
known the temper of the people ; and remembering how
troublesome they were, even when led by an obscure man
from the ranks, he could not but see how formidable was
the difficulty now that ihey had among them a crowned
and legitimate king. King Edward was then at Winchester,
shaken by sickness and bowed by care, getting his way back
to London with extreme difficulty, to take steps to meet the
new emergency. But if for no worthier things, there was
room still in his frail body for hatred and ferocity. The
short-lived projects about conciliation and gradual amal-
gamation dissolved at once; and it is observable that hence-
forth to his death the fiery rage of the king is visible even
through the decorous formality with which the royal scribes
were bound to prepare the royal proclamations. In his pious
mind the rising would be aggravated, if aggravation were
possible, by the conditions of Comyn's slaughter. One
of the earliest acts of his vengeance is a deep stain on
his chivalry. The Countess of Buchan was caught, and
Edward devised a special and ingenious punishment for
her. He gave orders for the preparation of a cage —
•* kage " it is called in the Norman-French of the warrant —
of spars ; it was to be large enough for a proper chamber,
and to be attached to one of the towers of Ben^4ck, and
so guarded and placed as to prevent her holding con-
verse with any one but her immediate attendants, who
must not be natives of Scotland; and in this she was
imprisoned. We are not told so in the minute instruc-
tions for the making of the cage, but the English chron-
iclers tell us that the cage was so hung that she could be
seen by passers-by; and the object of restraining her in
this form seems to have been that she might be a com-
mon spectacle, and an example of the fate in store for
those who thwarted the will of Edward.^ To such acts

^ " In domuncula quadam lignea super murum castri Beriwici posita
est, ut possent earn conspicere transeuntes." — Rishanger, 229.

** Sub dio forinsecus suspendatur, ut sit data, in vitaet post mortem,
speculum viatoribus et opprobrium sempitemum." — Mat Westm.,

455.
Anything that can be said in mitigation of so odious an act is always

KDWARD'S PREPARATIONS, 1305-6. 243

could baffled ambition bow the chivalrous knight, who
had wept over the loss of his loved Eleanor, and had
given such expression to his sorrows as made her memory
renowned to after-ages.

Aymer de Valence. Earl of Pembroke, was sent to be
Governor of Scotland in place of John de Bretagne, who
appears to have been driven forth by the Scots. An ordi-
nance was issued, very different in tone from the pacify-
ing ordinance of the previous year, and much shorter.
First, it was to be proclaimed through all cities, towns,
and burghs, and by the justices on their circuits, that all
those wlio were in arms against the king were to be pur-
sued and taken, dead or alive ; they were to be pursued
by hue-and-cry from city to city, from county to county,
from place to place, and those who did not join the chase
after them were to forfeit their estates and be imprisoned.
If any sinned further and harboured the rebels, they were
to be punished at the discretion of the governor. Next,
all who had any concern with the death of Comyn were to
be drawn and hanged, and the same to any who gave them
countenance or comfort. All taken in arms against King
Edward, and all giving shelter to persons in arms, were to
be hanged or beheaded. For those who had taken arms,
but so far returned to a sense of duty as to surrender,
there were punishments short of death.^ A speedy appli-
cation was made to the Pope for letters of excommunica-
tion against Bruce for sacrilege, and they were granted,
with unusual promptitude, on the i6th of May. They di-
rected the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Carlisle,
in consideration of the slaughter in the church of the

welcome. It is not in the instruction that the cage shall be in the
open air and visible to the passers-by, and therefore the chroniclers
may be mistaken. The place for the cage is ** en une des turelles
dedenz le chastel " (Foedera, Record edit, 995). A cage made secure
in itself — and the instructions are to make this absolutely so — is rather
anomalous within the lower of a castle, and seems a work of superero-
gation. Perhaps, however, we may infer that it was within the castle
wall, and that the exposure to passers-by was limited to those who
frequented the castle.
* Ryle/s Pleadings in Parliament, sia

244 ^VAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

Minorites, to excommunicate the Earl of Carrick by the
usual sounding of bells and burning of candles.^ This
bull has not the appearance of liaving been issued in a
knowledge of the political conditions of England and Scot-
land ; there had been a murder in a church, reported to
the Holy Court by a sovereign, and the usual anathema
was immediately issued. The bull seems to have had no
effect in Scotland, where thick-coming events gave more
immediate occupation to people's thoughts.

It was determined by King Edward that again there
should be a mighty invasion of Scotland. Summonses
and commissions of array went forth ; and to impress all
fighting men with the seriousness of the emergency, there
was a proclamation, as there had been before, against die
holding of idle military pageants, tournaments, jousts, and
the like, until this affair with Scotland should be finished.'
Broken down as he was, he must be carried with his army
northwards ; but before that army began its march there
was a grand state pageant and inauguration. The king's
eldest son, the Prince of Wales, a young man in his
twenty-second year, was to be knighted, and with him a
crowd of the sons of the English barons. He kept his
vigil in Westminster Abbey, was then duly dubbed, and
being himself within the sacred circle of knighthood,
he admitted his companions, some three hundred, who
took their vigils in the Temple Church. All London was
roused into excitement by the splendour and solemnity of
the ceremonies, which devoted the flower of the young
chivalry of England to the one engrossing object of the
subjugation of Scotland. King Edward, by his own per-
sonal part in them, threw a terrible earnestness over these
ceremonials. He made, by every sanction he could call
up, a vow to devote his remaining days to vengeance for
the sacrilegious murder, and the extermination of the rebel
king and his followers ; and conscious, as it would seem,
that the sternest will could not strengthen his tottering
frame for a long tough contest, he forecast a plan by which

^ Foedera ( Record eaiiton), i. ^87.
' Palgrave, Parliamentaiy Writs, i.

377.

EDWARD'S PREPARATIONS, 1305-6. 245

his indomitable spirit might leave an influence after it had
fled from the tenement of clay. He exacted a solemn vow
that on his death his body should be carried with his army,
and never buried until Scotland was subdued.*

His preparations for war were not hampered by the
slowness of his personal movements. An army reached
Scotland early in 1306, under Pembroke the new governor,
Clifford, and Percy, with what result we shall presently
see. The old king followed slowly, having to take long
rest at various points ; he set out in the summer of 1306,
but it was March of the following year ere he reached
Carlisle.'

He had the satisfaction yet before he died to reap a
small but rich harvest of vengeance. Nigel Bruce, a
brother of the king and a youth celebrated for his come-
liness, was taken, and afterwards hanged and beheaded.
The same doom befell the husband of Bruce's sister,
Christoi)her Seton, and his brother, Alexander Seton.
The Earl of Athole, Simon Fraser, and Herbert de Nor-
ham, were put to death at London after the horrible form
of the execution of traitors ; and the chronicles say that
Athole, being in some slight degree akin to the royal
blood of England, had the distinction that the gibbet he
was hanged on was thirty feet higher than the others.
There were many inferior victims.

These are the acts that break the spirit of servile races,
but only nerve those of higher mettle to defiance. The
selection of the victims, too, was of infinite value to the
struggling people of Scotland. Hitherto no noble and
Norman blood had been drawn by the hangman. AVhen
these strangers first acquired lands in Scotland, and after-
wards, while they belonged to the English court, they got
the name of Frenchmen, and were treated as hostile aliens.
But they were of the same race as the people of the land,
and gradually we find them changing from Frenchmen

^ or the various accounts of these events in the chronicles, the
most spirited is that given towards the end of Mathew of West'
minster.

' See the stages of his journey, traced by Lord Ilailes through th«
dates of the writs issued by him.

246 WAR OF INDEPKNDENCE.

to Scotsmen with the national feelings of their country :
and now this community of feeling became cemented by
common sufferings and a common enmity.

Among the illustrious captives were two great prelates
— Lamberton of St Andrews, and Wishart of Glasgow.
None had been so versatile and so indefatigable in stir-
ring up the people, and no laymen had broken so many
oaths of allegiance to Edward, yet he was content to im-
prison them, afraid to dip his hands in clerical blood.

Meanwhile the old king dreamed that new health was
stirring within him. He hung up his litter as a votive
offering in the cathedral of Carlisle, and mounted his
horse to ride towards the Sol way. He reached Burgh-on-
the-Sands, within sight of Scotland, and there died on the
7th of July 1307. With his last breath he provided for
the method in which the great vow he had exacted was
to be carried out. The flesh was to be stripped from the
bones, and these were to be borne at the head of the
army. The thing was not done ; dying wishes that breathe
of love and duty are deemed sacred, but those that carry
the spirit of hatred and vengeance survivors are not prompt
to execute. He was buried decorously in the Chapel of
King Edward, beside the wife of his heart, and that pal-
ladium of Scotland which was to be the one memorial ol
his conquests.

247

CHAPTER XXIII.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO BANNOCKBURN.

DirFICULTIES OP THE NEV7 KING — POLITICAL POSITION OF TUB
HIGHLANDS — BR UCE'S WANDERINGS AND ADVENTURES — ACTS OF
PERSONAL PROWESS — I'OI'ULARITY — FIRST GERMS OF SUCCESS —
CONTEST WITH THE COMYNS— ASSISTANCE OP THE CLERGY— THEIE
INFLUENCE, SPIRITUAL AND FEUDAL— THE OSCILLATIONS OP ALLE-
GIANCE—SPECIMEN OF A SHIFTING BISHOP— SIEGE OF STIRLING BT
BRUCE— ENGLISH NATIONAL PRIDE ROUSED— EAGERNESS TO DO
BATTLE IN SCOTLAND — COLLECTION OF A GREAT ARMY— PECULIAR
CONDITIONS OF THE COMING CONTEST AS FIXED BY THE ENGAGE-
MENT TO SURRENDER STIRLING — THE POSITION OF THE SCOTS
ARMY— ITS PERSONAL COMPOSITION— HOW BOTH ADAITED TO THE
OCCASION— THE APPROACH OF THE ENGLISH HOSTS— BRUCE'S PER«
SONAL PASSAGE OF ARMS — RANDOLPH'S SKIRMISH — BATTLE OF
BANNOCKBURN.

Soon after the inauguration at Scone, severe trials came
on the new king and his followers. The English army
was far too strong for an unorganised rising to make head
against it. Pembroke, the Regent, was strongly posted
at Perth. Bruce brought his little band too near this
enemy, and was attacked at Methven on the 19th of June.
It was a surprise and a scattering rather than a battle, but
it was a heavy blow to the infant cause ; it was in this
affair that the greater portion of the captives put to death
by the English were taken.

Soon aftenvards the party suffered a check from a
totally different quarter, which showed that, besides the
English claims, there was another formidable difficulty in
the wayof restoringScotland 10 an independent sovereignty.

248 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

We have repeatedly been reminded, in the course of events,
of the Celtic tribes of the west — people who could not
easily conform to the sovereignty of the King of Scots,
though they were in reality the descendants of those who
first brought the name of Scots into the country. It did
not make them more docile that the invasions and migra-
tions of the Scandinavians had brought men of the north-
em Teutonic blood into the original race. The royal
prerogative, and the Norman feudal tenure of land,
extended over their districts fleetingly, and sometimes
nominally only. By the technicalities of the chapel of
chancery the king's writs were current there, just as in
terms of a proclamation of King Edward, those of the .
King of England were supposed to be current in Scot-
land when Wallace governed or Bruce reigned. There
was enmity between these Celtic tribes and the Low-
landers of Scotland of a different kind from the enmity
that had now grown between England and Scotland. It
partook of the antipathy of race ; and though it did not
come out so powerfully in great contests, it never died.
It was the natural condition of these people to be under
absolute chiefs and leaders, who set up a mimic royalty.
When the local rulers, whether Celts or strangers, were
liable to be ruled or scourged through the power of Nor-
way on the sea, there was a certain compactness of rule
over the whole vast district We have seen that there
were three rival centres of command, — Dublin, Northum-
berland, and Orkney ; but all stood in awe of the ruler
of Norway. \Vhen this influence was finally broken by
the battle of Largs, another had not as yet replaced it,
though the Scotland where now the Lowland population
prevailed was naturally in the end to become that influ-
ence. Meanwhile, the contest for independence paraljrsed
the power of control, and the combination that seemed
long ago to be working itself into a great sea empire was
falling to pieces. Even in the Highlands and Isles there
was generally more than one king or chief. Had all been
tinder one leader when King Edward began his encroaclv
ments, there is no doubt that he would have had thorough
help from that leader. As it was, he entered into alliance

CAREER OF BRUCE, 1306-10. 249

with three of them; who, as they were in some measure
rivals, did not always co-operate.*

Bruce and his band had, for some cause unexplained,
to pass through Athole, and penetrate the Highlands until
he reached the edge of the country of one of these chiefs,
John of Lorn, who, naturally no friend of Bruce, happened
to be a relation of the slaughtered Comyn. There, at
Dairy, near Tyndrum, between Loch Awe and Loch
Tay, the little party was attacked by a swarm of High-
landers. ^ The contest was one of the kind which gave
opportunity to the mounted knights in full mail to show
how unassailable they were. To fight face to face with
the half-naked horde on their own rough ground was out
of the question, and Bruce gained signal honour^ by the
way in which he moved his mailed phalanx away, render-
ing pursuit deadly to those who came nearest.

Two other affairs come out with some distinctness in
the confused history following on the coronation. Bruce
wandered into the far west, Arran and Kintyre, seeking,
as it would appear, to have a good opportunity for seizing
his own Castle of Tumberry, on the Ayrshire coast oppo-
site to Arran. He found it so well garrisoned by Percy
that attack was useless. Fortune favoured his adventure,
however, in another shape; for in a night attack on
Percy's army, close at hand, he caused havoc and panic,
and, what was of some moment, gained a valuable booty.
He was here among his own people, from whom he would
of course recruit his force to the utmost, and he kept
Percy blockaded in the castle until a fresh English force
made it necessary to move away. The other affair was at
no great distance from Tumberry, at Loudon Hill, in the
eastern part of Ayrshire. The position was a strong one
— a. conical trap rock rising out of a sloping base. Here
Bruce met an attack by an English force under Pembroke.
What we can gather from the romantic traditions of the
affair is little more than this, that Bruce intrenched him-
self strongly, and, following up the tactic of Wallace, de-
»

* "Litera Alexandri de Argathil ; Utera Alexandri de Tnsulis*
Utera Donenaldi de Insulis.*' — F'oedera (Record edition), i. 761.

250 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

fended a strong position by spearmen on foot against the
assault of heavy armed cavalry, tempted to make a rash
attack by the disparity of their enemy's numbers, and the
superstitious reliance on the invincibility of such troops
as their own. However it came to pass, the English were
driven off so effectually that the affair is recorded as a
defeat in their contemporary chronicles, which tell that
their leader retreated to Ayr, and thence returned to
England.^

It is extremely difficult to give distinctness and chrono-
logical sequence to the events in Scotland from T306 to
1310: the conditions are indeed antagonistic to distinct-
ness. We have a people restless and feverishly excited
to efforts for their liberty when opportunity should come,
but not yet embodied in open war against their invaders,
and therefore doing nothing distinct enough to hold a
place in history — in fact, if after-events did not attest the
determined spirit of opposition then smouldering among
the people, the natural inference would be, that they were
now thorouglily broken in. The other prominent feature
in the historical conditions, was the new-made king, as yet
so insecurely seated that he must be treated as a com-
petitor only for a throne. He was not, however, in this
capacity holding himself apart in serene dignity until his
partisans should come to tell him that the cause of legiti-
macy is at length triumphant, and a devoted people are
impatient for their sovereign. On the contrary, he was
doing his own work with labour, peril, and suffering. At
one time he has to pass through dangerous ways to look
afler his interest at some distant spot — again he is pursued,
and has to flee for his life and hide himself. Aware of the
impossibility of making head for some time against the
army of occupation, he had sometimes more to do in keep-
ing his followers quiet and hidden than in embodying them
under his command. The history of such a way of life is
liable to indistinctness and obscurity ; and yet we possess
a clear and picturesque narrative of the whole. It is difli*
cult to believe it all, and yet it is so natural and congenial

^ See Hemingford, 236.

CAREER OF BRUCE, 1306-10. 2$ I

to the conditions of such a history, that it is useless to cut
away any part of it as absolutely incredible. It is a fact,
at all events, that the story was believed in Scotland at
the time, and it is necessary to a true history to afford
some touches of its characteristics.

We soon become acquainted with the nature, physical
and moral, of the adventurer. He is a tall strong man, of
comely, attractive, and commanding countenance. When
clad in steel and mounted on his war-horse he is a thorough
paladin, dealing with sword or mace the doughtiest blows
going in his day. But when he has to cast aside his pano-
ply he can take to the ways of the half-naked mountaineer
—c&n make long journeys on foot, scramble over rugged
ground, and endure cold and hunger. He is steady and
sanguine of temperament; his good spirits and good-
humour never fail, and in the midst of misery and peril
he can keep up the spirits of his followers by chivalrous
stories and pleasant banter. To women he is ever courte-
ous, and he is kindly and considerate to all less able to
bear fatigue and adversity than himself. There is through-
out, indeed, a remarkable parallel between Robert Bruce
and Henry the Great of France, with the difference in
Bruce's favour of his living in an age which did not applaud
the immoralities of gallantry.

There is a very fair instance of his personal prowess in
the retreat from the swarm of Highlanders near Tyndrum.
Two brothers had sworn to take his life ; and bringing a
comrade to aid them, they watched until the retreating
party had to pass between a lake and its abrupt bank.
Bruce was the last, and the passage was so narrow that it
was impossible for him to turn his horse. Then the
three leaped on him like wild-cats. One seized the bridle
and hung by the horse's head, and was instantly cut down
Another got his hands between the stirrup and the boot,
and tried, by heaving up the rider's foot, to unhorse him.
This was well known as a trick by which ill-armed assail-
ants, reckless of life among themselves, might put mounted
knights to imminent peril, for if once overbalanced, the
weight of the mail made recovery of the seat difficult.
Bruce stood straight up in his stirrups and dragged the

25^ WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

mountaineer after him, while the third alighted behind,
and, grasping him tightly, tried to help in the unhorsing.
The hero, twisting himself round, cleft his head, and then,
having no more to deal with, cut down the man dragged
at the stirrup.^

This was a natural enough shape for a contest between
a strong mounted man-at-arms with three fierce savages.
Other achievements of the Bruce are not quite so credible.
In Galloway he finds himself with but two attendants
beset by a party of the wild natives, some two hundred in
number. - He takes his station in a pass or cleft so narrow
that only one man on horseback can pass through it at a
time. Up comes a mounted Galwegian ; he and his horse
are at once slain by the king. Another and another
comes up, to share the same fate, and the cleft is so
choked up with dead men and horses that the others
cannot approach. The noise of the contest is heard by
Bruce's party, who come up to the rescue, and the Gal-
wegians retreat Still another incident. When hard
pressed by pursuers Bruce and his band would scatter,
each taking his own way, and leaving the enemy perplexed
as to the direction in which they were to seek the great
prize- Once finding himself in the presence of a double
army of his enemies, commanded by Pembroke and John
of Lorn, this tactic was tried. The Highlanders had, how-
ever, got hold of a bloodhound once belonging to Bruce
himself, and set him on the trail. He heard the baying
and knew the danger. Coming to a stream, he waded
some way up, then mounted into a tree, caught suspende<l
branches, and swung himself a good way on from tree to
tree before he alighted on the ground — so the hound
would find the place where his feet had entered the stream,

* Barbour says of llie two brothers : —

"Thar surnam was Makyndroftser,
That is all sa mekili to say her.
As th« Durwarth soniiis perfay.**

Shaw in his Gaelic Dictionary has 'Morsair" for doorkeeper. It
has been suggested that these were of the progeny or clan of Dur-
ward, the claimant (pp. 25 and 126), note to *' Early English
Text " edition of 'The Bruce.' It was in this encounter that ''the
brooch of Ldm " was teized.

CAREER OF BRUCE, 1306-10. 253

bat wouM Aowherc find trace of his stepping out upon
the bank.

There were other adventures of a less stirring kind, but
scarcely less likely to endear the national hero to his
Iieople. Early in their wanderings the party were joined
by Bruce's wife — the queen, as she was of course termed
— aiad the wives of some of his followers. Until they
were housed in the Castie of Kildrummy these ladies held
to the party in their wanderings, and the chivalrous spirit
of Bruce and his knightly followers was shown in the ten-
der care taken of them in extremity of difficulty, Bruce
was early joined by young Douglas, aftenvards known as
the Good Lord James — the son of Wallace's friend. The
youth appears to have been a great acquisition in many
ways. The party had to support themselves by hunting
and fishing, and Douglas showed himself an adept in both
kinds of sport.

He had his own share, too, in the achievements of the
party. One of these became renowned by the name of
the "Douglas l^arder." His paternal estates had been
gifted by King Edward to Clifford. The young Douglas
set off" one day in disguise, by way of taking a sentimental
ramble over the scenes of his infancy, but ready at the
same time to deal with such adventures as might befall
him. He found old followers of the house there, and
gradually gathered such a party as might adventure on
some great enterprise on known ground. The English
garrison went in a body to church, leaving the castle
empty of all save the domestics who were to prepare a
meal for them — a piece of carelessness almost incredible.
Douglas and his followers fell upon them, thus utterly at
unawares, and made an easy conquest. The victors then
ate the dinner prepared for their victims, and when they
had finished, gathered all the provender in the establish-
ment together on a pile of wood, somewhat after the
fashion of an old Roman funeral pyre. The captives were
slain, and, with those killed on the onset, were thrown on
the heap, while the wine-skins were cut open, so that the
liquor ran out along with their blood; then the whole
was set on fire. Such were the acts of vengeance which

254 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

hatred of their invaders had taught the people to tell and
hear with exultation. The story may serve to close the
brief string of incidents, selected rather to show the nature
of the things which the people delighted to hear concern-
ing their favourite hero and his companions, than as
events which can be vouched for as absolutely true.^

It must be held beyond all doubt, that the turning-
point in the recovery of the independence of Scotland was
the death of King Edward in 1307. The work to be done
required such a leader. Communities may grow strong or
weak — some may become aggressive and dominant, while
others sink into servility or decay ; these phenomena are

^ The book, half epic half chronicle, which is the great storehouse
of these adventures, is known to readers of old English literature as
* The Bruis/ by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. Scotland
is fortunate in the possession of such a memorial. The national hero
of a country is selaom thus celebrated until centuries have passed and
the manners have utterly changed. The chronicle or romance, what-
ever it may be called, is then an echo of the manners of its own day,
not of the age it professes to commemorate. The whole school of
Arthurian romance is an eminent instance of this. Barbour, how>
ever, was at his studies at Oxford within thirty years after Bruce's
death. The Archdeacon was not a man of bold or luxuriant imagina-
tion, whence one is apt to give the more faith to his narrative. It has
been accepted pretty freely into history, even by the dry and doubt-
ing Lord Hailes. Yet Barbour sets out with a statement showing a
determination to subordinate facts to his notion of the artistic struc-
ture of a story, calculated somewhat to appal the searcher after truth.
He makes his hero the same Bruce who was competitor for the crown
in 1 29 1, thus identifying the hero of the tale with his own grand-
father, and in fact finding materials for this hero in three genera-
tions. This enabled him to tell how the Bruce scornfully refused to
hold Scotland as a fief of England, so that Baliol, who was so base as
to accept the crown on such terms, was chosen in his stead.

There are three standard editions of 'The Bruce;' one by John
Pinkerton, well known to every student of our early history ; the
second by Dr Jamieson, the author of the Scots Dictioiarv ; the third
by Professor Innes for the Spalding Club. The popular editions,
with more or less variation from the stricter texts, are innumerable.
The book has recently been taken up by the critical inquirers into the
fountains of the English language and literature. A portion of ' The
Bruce ; or. The Book of the Most Excellent Prince Robert de Broyss,
King of Scots,* is edited for the Early English Text Society by th«
Rev. Walter W. Skeat.

CAREER OF BRUCE, 1306-10. 255

the result of silent, gradual processes, like growth and
decay in nature. To conquer a country at the sword's
point, however, requires the special man, with a head and
a will for the occasion. ^Vhen he disappears, his incom-
pleted work is lost His people and barons were not
always willing coadjutors in Edward's design; he had
first often the hard task of goading them to take arms
before he had the other of assailing his enemy, and he
frequently met with the bitterest disappointments when
discontentments for broken promises about the charters
lost him the favourable moment. No longer urged by a
fiery master, the English barons rested. The young king,
Edward II., had a fine army brought for him to the border,
and he crossed it, marching as far as Cumnock, in Ayr-
shire, and then returning, probably for want of provisions.
There was another equally meaningless incursion in 13 10,
when the English army reached Renfrewshire and returned.'
The lieutenants or governors of Scotland were frequently
changed, but none of the appointments had significance
enough to demand comment. Bruce was fast making
head. The chief stand made against him was by Comyn,
Earl of Buchan, the husband of the lady who had assisted
at his coronation. His domain was the great level tract
reaching from Aberdeenshire north-eastwards along the
coast to the opening of the Moray Firth. AVhether or not
he was successful in getting together a following from his
own territories, he and Mowbray, one of the English com-
manders, had a considerable force between them. Bruce
was westward in the higher ground, where his old feudal
strength lay. Being so near each other they could not but
fight, and they met near Inverury, on the Don. It was a
contest under conditions soon to disappear from history
— a Norman baron with a Scots title using his territorial
power in the cause of England. Bruce was on a sick-bed
at the time ; but, like the war-horse, the sound of battle
roused him, and he demanded to be mounted. His force
scattered the enemy, pursuing them to a great distance,
and Bruce said that the excitement of victory restored his
health. The victorious party swept the lands of the Comyn,

256 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

and their vengeance was remembered in local tradition as
the " heirship " or ** herrying " of Buchan.^

There remains a brief casual testimony to the extent of
the ruin inflicted, and the hero's compunction for at least
one class of tlie sufferers. The old well-endowed Colum-
bite monastery of Deer suffered with the other landholders
in the obnoxious district. The community naturally took
part with the lord of the soil, and in 1 296 Bruce the abbot
swore fealty to King Edward at BerwicL Within a year
after the victory of Bannockbum, Bruce granted to the
monastery a charter professing to render compensation far
the injuries inflicted on the community during the recent
wars, confirming to the community in free gift all the
churches, lands, and possessions that the lords of Buchan
and other magnates had professed to confer on them.^

The English were driven out of the strong places one
.by one — sometimes by the people of the district. We
hear of the fall of Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Linlithgow,
Perth, Dundee, Rutherglen, and Dumfries. In Aberdeen
there was a fortress with an English garrison, yet Bruce
and his followers were received in their hour of need by
the citizens, and when his prospects brightened the Eng-
lish garrison was driven out. The city long enjoyed a
tradition telling how the English garrison were put to
death, every one of them — for to have done something
towards the extirpation of the English invaders was a
source of legitimate pride in any part of Scotland.* The
fortresses thus taken seem to have usually been of the

1 " Gert his men burn all Bouchane
Fra end till end, and sparit nane ;
Ajid her3rit them on sic maner,
{That efter that, neir fift^ yhetr.
Men menyt the heirschip of Bouchane."

— ^I'he Bruce, book iic.

Barbour's abode was close to the district of Buchan.

^ Third Report of Historical MSS. Comra., Ap.

' Hector Boece said the bones of the English were to be seen in bis
day with inscriptions narrating the manner of their death. As also'
that the Church ntade the citizens ever after do penance by retiring
to the chapel of the castle every Sunday and praying for the Englisli
slain. See in the ' Book of Bonaccord,' p. 32, an examination bni\£<
ing home the whole story to Hector Boece*s inventive genius.

CAREER OF BRUCE, 1306-IO. 257;

clumsy obsolete class, and Bruce was in the practice of
destroying them. As a Norman baron accustomed to the
new school of fortification, he would naturally have little
respect for them. The Scots array, too, was seldom large
enough to be wasted on secondary garrisons, and an ex-
tensive process of fortresses was inconsistent with the policy
of the defensive system begun by Wallace and ever main-
tained, of abandoning invaded districts and leaving bare
fields to the enemy.

In the beginning of the year 1309, Scotland was so far
consolidated as to be getting into a place in European
diplomacy. The King of France advised his son-in-law,
Edward II., to agree to a souffrance or truce with the
Scots. It is difficult to believe that such a recommenda-
tion was made spontaneously. We must suppose that the
Scots pressed on the Court of King Philip the policy of
reminding England that France had not forgotten the
existence of Scotland as a means of checking her great
enemy. The truce was agreed to. In the adjustment of
the affair a little incidental touch of the French diplomatic
practice of that day came out King Edward wrote to
the King of France, complaining that his emissary had
letters openly addressed to Robert de Bruce, Earl of Car-
rick, while he had others kept secret addressed to him as
King of Scotland.^

While the negotiations \vith France went on, counte-
nance still more important was given to the new order of
things at home. The clergy in council set forth their
adherence to King Robert, with the reasons for it. They
referred to the contest of his grandfather for the throne,
maintaining that he was the true heir. In mournful strain
they lamented the miseries suffered by the country through
the ambition and cruelty of its enemies ; but He under
whom kings reign had restored the land through the suc-
cess and prudence of King Robert, whom the people
received as the true heir of the crown in right of his

^ " Ad Regem Francix, de suspicione nuncii sui scribentis litems
Roberto de Brus, alias publice ut Comiti de Carrie, alias secrete ut
Kegi Scotiae, 2d Aug." — Fcedera (Record edition), ii. 79.

VOL. II. R

258 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

grandfather, and thereupon they proffered to him theit
homage and allegiance. Among the adherents to this
manifesto were Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, and
the Bishops of Glasgow, Dunkeld, Aberdeen, Moray,
Dunblane, Ross, Caithness, Brechin, the Isles, and Gallo-
Avay.^

This was an extremely important matter, for it meant,
of course, that the Church would do its best to protect
him from all ecclesiastical risk arising from the death of
Comyn. This powerful backing was no doubt due to the
restless Lamberton. He had been for some time a pri-
soner in England, where he expressed much contrition for
the past, and loyalty to the cause of English ascendancy.
On his earnest representation that he could belter serve
the cause of Edward in Scotland than where he was, he
was released ; and this was the way in which he fulfilled
his obligation.

There was, indeed, ere the revolution had come this
length, a great deal of oath-breaking and counter-swearing.
Part of it was voluntary, as when those whose homage
had been exacted by Edward found themselves free. A
considerable portion of it was no doubt forced on unwill-
ing subjects by the new Government; for the Norman
barons who held lands in Scotland had not all turned
Scotsmen — the sympathies of many of them were with the
English Court.2

Of course the breaking of an oath has an ugly sound,
and is not to be lightly spoken of; yet, like all other
offences, it has to be measured by the special conditions
and prevalent doctrines of the time. We have seen the
])racticc of oaths of allegiance coming into universal use
with the feudal system : it was, along with the marriage

^ Act Pari. Rob. I., first vol. of Scots Acts, 100.

* Sir Francis Palgrave gives an instance of homage coercively
exacted by Bruce, which he seems to think more unjust and tyrannic
cal than anything he found King Edward doing. It is in a memorial
to King Edward and his council by Malice, Earl of Stratheam, which
*' is exlrcmely interesting, as showing the force and duresse exercised
by the Bruce against or upon all who dared to adhere to their own
allegiance." — Documents, clix. 319.

CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOM, 1310-14. 259

law and other institutions, one of the arrangements by
which the Church sought a hold over the laity, and in its
primary object of cultivating truthfulness and fidelity was
beyond question beneficial. The practice, however, was
heavily influenced by the materialism prevalent in the
religion of the day. In exacting an efi*ective oath, the great
point was to attach to it some special sanction which would
make the swearer afraid to break it. An oath was taken
in the name of a certain saint, and it would be much in*
vigorated if the hand were laid on a bone or some other
relic of the saint. From that moment tlie person sworn,
if he were a religious-minded man, felt that the saint would
be his enemy if he broke his oath. One can see that an
oath judiciously attached to some minor saint was often
more desirable than a higher religious sanction ; the minor
saint had not much power, perhaps, but that might render
him all the more vigilant in looking to the conduct of his
devotee. In some instances we shall find a double selec-
tion : some minor saint, popular and powerful in the dis-
trict, invoked along with another illustrious throughout
the Church. In short, the whole policy of seeking influ-
ence and authority among the saints resembled that of
common worldly self-seekers working for their objects
through the help of influential friends or patrons. We
must hold all these things in view in estimating the funda-
mental character of oaths and the sanctions invoked in
them. But the religious oath, such as it was, held a strong
influence in the feudal apparatus of the day.

Thus, after centuries, the Church had thoroughly estab-
lished the influence of this kind of obligation. At the same
time, however, the practice had taken such a tendency,
that what the Church laid on the Church could also
take off. The pious Edward I. himself, while exhausting
his eloquence on the sacrilegious perfidy of the Scots, was
pleading at the Court of Rome for dispensation from the
oath he had taken to confirm the charters. It is another ,
strange feature in the aff*air that churchmen were the
readiest to act in the teeth of their oaths, because the)
knew better than laymen how to get the burden of the ^
oifence removed ; the afiair was in their own way of busi*

260 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

ncss — they were surer of what they were about In the
great contest for independence, the oaths broken by eccle-
siastics are about a hundred per cent more in proportion
than those broken by laymen.^

Another unpleasant feature disturbs the harmonious
picture of an oppressed peo|)le driving forth the invader

^ Sir Francis Palgrave becomes unintentionally picturesque in the
rubrics or marginal indications given by him, when he brings forward
the record of the retractions of the two eminent prelates Lamberton
and Wishait : —

"The king's enemies being defeated, Lamberton changes sides;
takes the oath of fealty again to the king ; receives back his tempo-
ralities, &c

' Confidence reposed by Edward I. in Bishop Lamberton. lie is
appointed chief of the royal lieutenants or governors.

*' Lamberton changes sides again, and steals off to Bruce.

" Lamberton treadierously places the son and heir of the Stewart
(who had been given as a hostage by his father) in the power of the
Bruce.

** The king's power increasing, Lamberton changes sides again ;
surrenders himself to Sir Aymer de Valence, and takes another oath
of fealty to the king ; after which he changes sides again, and sends
forces to the assistance of Bruce.

*' The Pope requested to punish such acts of perjury and treason.

" Bishop Wisheart takes the oath of fealty for theyfrj/ time.

" And breaks hisjlrst oath, abetting Baliol in all his treasons.

" Bishop Wisheart, upon BalioFs submission, takes the oath of
fealty for the second time.

'* Bbhop Wisheart takes two more oaths, and promises fealty for
the third tmie.

** Bishop Wisheart takes advantage of the king's absence, breaks
his second and third oaths, and instigates the rising of Bruce and
Wallace.

" Bruce's affairs appearing to decline. Bishop Wisheart changes
sides again ; submits, and becomes one of the sureties for Bruce.

" Bishop Wisheart changes sides again, and goes over to the
Bruce.

" Bishop Wisheart appeaxs to change sides again, and surrenders
himself to Edward.

** Bishop Wisheart charged with having made such his surrender
out of treachery, and that he might betray Roxburgh Castle to the
enemy.

•* Bishop Wisheart treated most courteously by Edward— enlarged
upon his parole. He takes the oath of fealty for ^t fourth time.

** Bishop Wisheart breaks his fourth oath, changes sides, and
ftends forces to act against the English.
, '* Edward having defeated his enemies, the bishop changes sides

CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOM, 1 310- 1 4. 26 1

that they might regain their liberties and enjoy them in
peace. Peace was not yet among the objects of the Scots.
King Edward complained that they broke the truces he
had conceded by desire of the King of France. They made
more than one raid through unhappy Cumberland, in one
of them reaching Durham, where they did much mischief.
The English chroniclers charge the marauders with all the
horrors which it had been for centuries the practice to
attribute to a border invasion by the Scots. The son of
the man who had twice overrun Scotland was assailed by
the piteous wails of his own English subjects — victims
from the masterful Scots invaders. Beyond the suffering
districts, the calamity was made known in the disagreeable
shape of the exaction of a forced loan to protect England
against Robert Bruce and the Scots.^ If the voice of
prudence could be heard in the tumult of such wild retali-
ation, it would tell that the Scots could take no sUrer way
of proclaiming to England that Scotland should be recon-
quered.

A crisis came at last which roused the Government of
England to a great effort. After the fortresses had fallen
one by one, Stirling Castle still held out It was besieged
by Edward Bruce before the end of the year 13 13. Mow-
bray, the governor, stipulated that he would surrender if
not relieved before the Feast of St John the Baptist in the
following year, or the 24th of June. The taking of this fort-
ress was an achievement of which King Edward was prouder
than of anything else he had done in the invasion of Scot-
land. He made it of far more moment than even his victory

again ; takes the oath of fealty for the fifth time, and acknowledges
that he holds his temporalities of the king.

*' The bishop takes the oath of fealty for the sixth time, and with
great solemnity.

" After which he changes sides again, and assists Bruce iotisviribus
in his assumption of the royal authority.

** These matters notorious to all the world.

" The bishop refuses to return to his allegiance.

" Preaches to the people that fighting against the King of England
u as good a work as a crusade.''

^ 1 he assessment of this loan on the clergy is given at length in
Palgrave's Parliamentary WritSi ii. 105.

262 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

aver Wallace at Falkirk. Its possession was a significant
symbol that there was still a hold on Scotland, for it com-
manded the gate, as it were, by which the two great divi-
sions of the country could hold intercourse with each
other. That the crowning acquisition of their mighty
king should thus be allowed to pass away, and stamp em-
phatically the utter loss of the great conquest he had made
for the English crown, was a consummation too humiliat-
ing for the chivalry of England to endure without an effort.
Stirling Castle must be relieved before St John's Day, and
the relieving of Stirling Castle meant a thorough invasion
and resubjection of Scotland. The great barons, who
had been at discord with the king about his favourite,
Pierce Gaveston, and other things, now set to work in the
great cause, and the lazy king was thus the nominal di-
rector of a military drain upon the country more thorough
than his determined and untiring father had ever accom-
plished. Besides the feudal force of England, dragged out.
by all forms of summons and array, the king demanded
the attendance of his Welsh subjects. After the example
of his father, he issued personal requisitions to the kings
or chiefs of " The Irishry." ^ Against the kind of enemy
they were to meet, neither of these two elements could be
of much benefit to the army, and they were probably
rather a hindrance than a help.

Perhaps there never was a battle of which the conditions
as to both armies were so distinctly preadjusted and so
inevitable, as that which was to come. The time and the
place were fixed by an obdurate necessity. The English
were to relieve Stirling Castle; the Scots must prevent
them. If they attempted to meet the invaders at any dis-
tance from this point, they ran two rijsks. If the enemy
were not met and fought, these might outflank the Scots
and reach the castle. If the Scots did meet and fight, it
might be on bad ground, and that would be fatal. The

* They are addressed by such titles as — Eth Offlyn dux Hibemi-
corum de Turtery ; Doneval 0*Neil dux Hibernicorum de Tyrowyn ;
Lauercath Mac Wyr dux Hibernicorum de Loughcrin ; Gillys
O'Railly dux Hibernicorum de Bresfeny ; Felyn 0*Honoghur dux
Hibernicorum de Connoch, &c.~Foedcra (Record edllion), ii. 245.

BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN, 13 14. 263

battle, therefore, must be under the walls of the castle.
Certain ^vrits issued in England so early as the 27th
of May set forth, for the purpose of exciting the warlike
spirit of the country, that the Scots intend to assem-
ble in great numbers on certain strongholds and morasses
inaccessible to cavalry, in order that they may prevent
the Castle of Stirling from being relieved before the Feast
of the Nativity of St John ; and if the relief be not effected
the Constable must surrender the castle, according to
conditions between him and the enemy. That any force
Bruce could gather should rteet so mighty an army as
England was collecting, otherwise than on strong selected
ground, was out of the question. It was the fortune of the
Scots that the ground provided for them was nearly as
good — perhaps quite as good — as any they could have
selected ; and there was this further advantage, that how-
ever strongly they were posted, the English must attack
them there, and could not evade the battle.

Stirling Castle stands on a trap rock rising out of a basin,
and one does not pass far from it before beginning to as-
cend. To the south, and partly to the east and west, the
ascent is on the Campsie Fells, a chain of hills neither
very lofly nor very precipitous, but affording ground cap-
able of being made very defensible. Here the Scots army
were to meet the enemy ; indeed nowhere else could they
do so ; and Bruce occupied himself in fortifying the posi-
tion. To the right it was well protected by the brawling
rivulet the Bannock Burn, which gave a name to the con-
test. Had they only to choose the strongest post and
meet an attack, it had been a simple affair ; but there was
a tract of flat ground through which an army might pass
to the gate of Stirling Castle, and that must be seen to.
This tract was therefore honeycombed with pits, and the
pits were covered with branches strewn with the common
growth of the neighbourhood. This was done, not with
the childish expectation of catching the English troops
in a trap, but to destroy the ground for cavalry purposes.^

^ Between the slope of the fells and the flat carse the ground undu«
Jates. The undulations, in general, liave no direction hke the feUi,

264 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

On the 23d of June the two armies were visible to each
other. If the Scots had, as it was said, between thirty
and forty thousand men, it was a great force for the coun-
try at that time to furnish. Looking at the urgency of the
measures taken to draw out the feudal array of England,
to the presence of the Welsh and Irish, and to a large
body of Gascons and other foreigners, it is easy to be
believed that the army carried into Scotland might be,
as it was said to be, a hundred thousand in all. The
efficient force, however, was in the mounted men, and
these were supposed to be about equal in number to
the whole Scots army. This great host was apparelled
with unusual magnificence. Had it been assembled for
some object of courtly display, it would have been a memor-
able exhibition of feudal splendour. The countless ban-
ners of all colours and devices, and the burnished steel
coats of the many thousand horsemen glittering in the
summer sun, left impressions of awe and admiration which
passed on from generation to generation.

There are efforts, not always successful, to describe the
exact division and disposal of the Scots army. It seems
more important to keep in view the general tactic on which
its leader was prepared with confidence to meet so unequal

but arc isolated gravel hills. Of these, however, one portion goes in
a transverse direction from the declivity of the fells towards the carse
in such manner that one can easily suppose it concealing from those
in the upper ground a party moving along the level, close under its
shelter, and can also understand how, on this movement being de-
tected, troops could be carried round the shoulder of the transverse
mound, so as to come by surprise on those attempting the relief. It
is also, from the nature of the ground, easily to be understood how a
leader placed where all the field was visible — as, for instance, at the
spot now called the "Bore Stone" — could see any such attempt,
while a leader on duty further down could not. This refers to the
ground on which occurred an affair which has to be told as prelimin-
ary to the great battle, the defence of the passage by Randolph against
Clifford. How far the stream of the Bannock protected a flank
must have depended on the preceding weather. In places its banks
are steep. It has generally now little volume of water, being
diverted for manufacturing purposes. Among the dirty pools in its
bed in the filthy manufactunng village, the multitude of large
.boulders brought down by it show that it has been at times a power*
jTul stream.

BATTLE OF BANNOGKBURN, 1314. 265

a force. It was the same that Wallace had practical! j
taught, and it had just recently helped the Flemings to
their victory of Courtrai. Its leading feature was the re-
ceiving charges of cavalry by clumps — square or circular —
of spearmen ; and simple as it was, it was revolutionising
the military creed of Europe by sapping the universal faith
in the invincibility of mounted men-at-arms by any other
kind of troops. Bruce had a small body of mounted men,
but he was not to waste them in any attempt to cope with
the English cavalry ; they were reserved for any special
service or emergency.

For the hopes of Scotland the great point was that the
compact clumps of spearmen should be attacked upon
their own ground. But there was a serious danger to be
met beforehand. Holding the approaches to the castle from
the east was far more difficult than holding the ground of
the main army. If any body, however small, of the Eng-
lish army could force this passage, and could reach the
castle gate or the sloping parts of the rock, the primary
object of the invasion would be accomplished. The castle
would be relieved, and the English army, no longer bound
to attack the Scots on their own strong ground, could go
where it pleased ; and in fact this movement, so danger-
ous to the Scots, had been wellnigh accomplished. It was
the duty of King Robert's nephew, Randolph, with a party
told off for the purpose, to guard the passage. The king
observed that a party of eight hundred horse under Clif
ford were making a circuit, evidently with the purpose of
reaching the passage, and that no preparations were made
to receive them. He pointed this out to Randolph with a
. severe rebuke for his negligence. Burning to redeem his
honour, he ran on with a body of spearmen, who planted
themselves in the way of the English horsemen, forming
a clump with spears pointing forth all over it like the
prickles of a hedgehog. The horse attacked them furi-
ously in front without breaking them, then wheeled round
and round them, vainly assailing them from all points.
From a distance the little party seemed doomed, and
'Douglas hastened with a following to their rescue, but as
he approached the aspect was more cheering. It was not

266 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

SO certain that they were to be beaten, and cliivalry for-
bade him to give unnecessary aid. The assailants had
suffered heavy loss. Sir William d'Eyncourt, an illustrious
English knight, was counted among the dead ; and th6
horsemen, breaking up into confusion, had to retreat to
the main army. This was followed by a short and memor-
able passage at arms. King Robert was riding along the
front of his line on a small horse or hackney, conspicuous
by a little gold circlet round his head to mark his rank.
An English knight, Henry de Bohun, rode forward into
the space between the two armies, after the fashion of a
challenger to one of the single combats which at that time
gave liveliness to the intervals between the serious business
of battle. Bnice accepted the challenge. He warded off
his enemy's charge, and, wheeling round, cleft his skull
with a small battle-axe, the handle of which went to
pieces.

His followers blamed him for so rashly risking the safety
of the army in his own, and he had nothing to say in his
defence. Yet the act was not so flagrant as it might be if
the like were done in our days. One so thoroughly trained
to personal warfare as Bruce must have known the extent
of his own resources, and might be able to calculate on
the next to certainty of killing his man and on the inspir-
ing influence of such an act.^

We can easily believe what is said of this incident
shooting a feeling of despondency and apprehension
through the English host. It was nothing in itself, but it
was an evil portent.

I . I I.. I ^ .1 .1

^ Some histories make him meet the censure of his followers by the
flippant remark that he regretted breaking his good battle-axe. This
is not in character ; and Barbour, who is referred to as authority for
the saying, had far too good a taste to put such a decoration on hi«
narrative. He says the king made no answer, but seemed like one
mourning over the fragments in his hands : —

** The kin£[ them answer made he na.
But menit his hand ax shaft sa
Was with the strak broken in twa.^

The conduct of a man awakened to the reflection that, successful as it
vvas, his act had been unworthy of his responsibilities.

BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN, 1314. 267

It was at daybreak on the 24th of June that the English
army advanced to the charge. There was a preparatory
movement very perilous to the Scots. The English army
contained a large body of archers, whose motions on foot
and in thin lines were not impeded by the difficulties of
the ground. A detachment of these wheeled round and
took up a position where they could rake the compact
clumps of Scots spearmen. The bowmen were a force
becoming every year more formidable. It was destined
to be the strongest arm of the English army, and on many
memorable occasions it inflicted heavy punishment on the
Scots. It is difficult to realise the power an«^ precision
with which the masters of the art could send a cloth-yard
shaft. They could pick out one by one the chinks ard
joints in the finest suit of Milan mail. To spearmen on
foot it was hopeless to contend with them — only cavalry
could drive them off. Here then was a use for Bruce's
small reserve of cavalry. ^ It charged the archers and
dispersed them, and now the clumps of spearmen had to
resist the onset of the English cavalry.

These soon found how judiciously the ground had been
prepared for them. They were parcelled out in ten battles
or battalions, but there was not room to move these separ-
ately on the narrow ground available for cavalry, and the
whole seemed to their enemy thrown into one unorganised
mass, or "scheltum" as they called it. The spearmen
stood against the charges of the horsemen firm as a rock.
It was one of the formidable features in their method of
resistance that a great proportion of the wounds fell to the
poor horses, who rushed hither and thither in their agony,
or, as Barbour has it, the horses " that were sticked rushed
and reeled right rudely."

In the front anything like combined movement or even
ordinary discipline was speedily gone. There they were a
mass of brave men well mounted for battle, and many
desperate but useless onsets they made as single com-
batants on their compact enemy. Confusion was getting
worse and worse, and only one result could be. It is
said to have been hastened by the appearance of a set

268 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

of camp-followers on the sky-line of a neighbouring hill,
who were mistaken for a fresh army of the Scots. The
end was rout, confused and hopeless. The pitted field
added to the disasters ; for though they avoided it in their
advance, many horsemen were pressed into it in the retreat,
and floundered among the pitfalls. Through all the his-
tory of her great wars before and since, never did England
suffer a humiliation deep enough to approach even com-
parison with this.

Besides the inferiority of the victorious army. Bannock-
bum is exceptional among battles by the utter helplessness
of the defeated. There seems to have been no rally ing-point
anywhere. There was enough of material to have made
two or three armies capable, in strong positions, of making
a troublesome stand, and, at all events, of making good
terms. But none of the parts of that mighty host could keep
together, and the very chaos among the multitudes around
seems to have perplexed the orderly army of the Scots.
The foot-soldiers of the English army seem simply to have
dispersed at all points, and the little said of them is pain-
fully suggestive of the poor wanderers having to face the
two alternatives — starvation in the wilds, or death at the
hands of the peasantry. The cavalry fled right out to-
wards England : why men with English manhood should
have done so is a mystery. It was like the Scripture say-
ing that the wicked flee when no man pursueth, for the
little band of Scots mounted men was far too small
for pursuit, and could not be let loose by any pru-
dent commander among the vast mass of cavalry break-
ing away.

Perhaps this helplessness in flight, as also many other
incidents of disaster, may be attributed to one cause — to
the command being taken by the king himself, with his
utter incapacity for the task. The only little gathering
out of the dispersal of that huge army seems to have been
a body of 500 knights who rallied round the king, but it
was only to attend him in his headlong flight To the
Lothian peasant the mighty King of England galloping
past like a criminal fleeing from justice must have been
a sight not to be presently forgotten. The king reached

BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN, I3T4. 269

Dunbar, a fortress still in his own hands, and took shipping
tor Berwick.

The camp apparel left behind by the fugitives made a
booty so extensive and so costly as to astound its captors.
Scotland, as we have seen, was not an abjectly poor
country at the commencement of the war. There evidently
was a considerable body living in comfort ; but the splen-
dour then coming into vogue in such courts as those of
France, Burgundy, and England, seems hardly to have
been known in the land. We have seen what poor pick-
ings King Edward took away with him from the royal
treasures, yet he certainly did not leave much behind.
The costly stuffs and valuables of many kinds found in
the English camp became long a tradition in Scotland —
indeed the articles themselves turn up centuries afterwards
as remarkable possessions. We have a parallel to the
affair in the rich booty which Charles the Bold of Bur-
gundy provided for the Swiss peasantry; but why an
English army took with it that heap of finery is not easily
to be understood. There is reason to believe that a great
part of the rich fabrics found their way to the cathedrals
and religious houses, where they served for the adornment
of the altars, for ecclesiastical robes, and the like.^

Still more valuable than this inanimate merchandise
was the living spoil — the crowd of noble captives who had
to be ransomed. In this very lucrative kind of booty
Bannockbum was peculiarly rich, from the nature of a
conflict in which so much was gained by the disabling of
the horses rather than of the riders. The ransoming of
captives taken in war was then becoming a great trade
throughout Europe, and was casting an ugly mercenary
stain on the repute of chivalry. Instances were known
where lives were taken among the comrades contending
for the possession of the captive tenderly preserved from

^ See Robertson's Preface (p. 26) to the inventories of the Jewels
of Queen Mary, to whose possession some of them fell. In an
inventory of the decorations of the great altar of the Cathedral of
Aberdeen, taken a short time before the Reformation, there is men-
tion of a bundle of robes *'ex spolio coiiflictus de Bannockbume.**
^Kcgistrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, ii. 1S9.

&70 WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

mischief, while in others he had suffered death in the very
contention among those who each desired to keep him
alive.

In dealing with this business, King Robert resolved to
pursue a policy of moderation. He could well afford it.
In his troubles and his triumphs, too, he remembered that
he was still a Norman knight, and grand beyond any that
ever fell to the lot of man was his opportunity for showing
magnanimity to his old companions in arms. There are
pleasant stories of his gracious dealing with them : among
others, how Marmaduke de Twenge, the same who had
made a gallant effort to redeem the day for England in
the battle of Stirling Bridge, fell a poor fugitive in the
king's way, and, yielding himself up as captive, was
treated with a courtesy worthy of his high fame as a kniglit
of prowess. If among his followers there was any tendency
towards rapacity in the matter of the ransoms, the king
seems to have appeased them by making over to them
from the fund arising out of this source a portion properly
belonging to himself. In the treatment of the dead,
many of them the heads of the most distinguished houses
in England, he also gained golden opinions. Much care
was taken in their decorous interment with Church rites ;
and in some instances, where application was made for
such a concession, the body was removed to England with
all decorous ceremonials, that it might be laid where the
illustrious family of the slain man desired that his ashes
should rest.

Among the prisoners was one whose story furnished the
Scots with a merry jest to grace their triumph. He was a
certain Carmelite friar, named Baston ; and it was said of
him, whether truly or not, that he had been taken to see
the battle in order that he might the better be able to
perform a certain function assigned him, which was the
celebration of the triumph of the English king as he
returned victorious — ^an expectation which Bower charac-
terises as proud presumption and presumptuous pride.
He was told that, as the price of his ransom, he must
celebrate the triumph of the real victors, and that without
ambiguity. The result is presen'cd, and, whatever other

BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN, 1314. 2/1

merits it may have, shows a laboriously earnest effort
to accomplish his task to the satisfaction of his in-
structors.^

Stirling Castle was delivered up in terms of the stipula-
tion. Edward Bruce was blamed for having made it, and
given such dangerous terms to England; but the result
was fortunate.

* For instance, when the great confusion begins : —

" Est dolor inimensus, augente dolore dolorera,
Est furor accensus, stimulante furore furorem.
Est clamor crescens, ferientc priore priorem,
£ct valor arescens, frustrante valure valorem," 8lc.

— Scotickron., sU u

272

CHArTER XXIV.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE DEATH OF

ROBERT BRUCE.

IPFECT OP THE BATTLE OP BANNOCKBURN— A PARLIAMENT. ANO
THE ADJUSTMENT OP THE SUCCESSION — ^THE BRUCES INDUCED TO
BECOME LEADERS OP THE IRISH NATIONAL PARTY— CAUSE OP THB
IRISH SEEKING THEM — THE QUESTION OF THE INDEPENDENCE
AGAIN BEFORE THE PAPAL COURT — ^ADVENTURES OF A CARDINAL
EMISSARY SENT TO BRUCE— RECAPTURE OF BERWICK— BAFFLED
ATTEMPTS OP ENGLAND TO RECOVER IT — RAID ON ENGLAND — A
PARLIAMENT — ^THE SOLEMN ADDRESS TO THE POPE, AND RESOLU-
TION TO HOLD BY INDEPENDENCE — A GREAT INVASION OF SCOT-
LAND AGAIN ATTEMPTED — ITS FAILURE, AND THE METHOD OF IT
—REVENGE TAKEN BY RAIDS ON ENGLAND— SUFFERINGS OF THE
ENGLISH PEOPLE— DISAFFECTION IN THE NORTH — AID OFFERED TO
SCOTLAND — INTLRVENTION OF THE POPE— INVASION OF ENGLAND
— THE TREATY OF NORTHAMPTON— THE DEATH OF BRUCE.

For a few yeiars after the battle of Bannockbum there
was little to stir the exhausted country save marauding
incursions into England in the old cruel manner. They
reached as far as York, and carried terror of the name of
Scot into the very heart of England. Yet if such things
have a justification, it was furnished by the perversity
of the English king or his advisers. King Robert wrote
to the King of England, saying there was nothing he
so earnestly sought as a permanent good understanding
between the two kingdoms. The King of England ap-
pointed commissioners to meet those of Scotland, but he
would not concede the independence demanded of him,
or treat Bruce as a sovereign.

On the ist of May 13 15, a Parliament was held to adjust

THE BRUGES IN IRELAND, 1315-18. 273

the order of succession. The nearest relations of Bruce
were his daughter Marjory, his brother Edward, and his
nephew Randolph. If the king left a son, he was to suc-
ceed. It was provided that, should there be no son,
there might be a deviation from the pure hereditary rule
on account of the necessity of a male ruler for Scotland
in its present position. It was set forth that his daughter
was the heir-apparent, but she had given her consent to
be passed over for Edward Bruce, whose prowess as a
warrior would be of infinite value.^

Among other provisions for contingencies, some of
them far off, should the succession open to a minor, the
king's nephew, Randolph of Moray, was to be guardian
of the kingdom.

Three years afterwards this arrangement had to be
readjusted. Edward Bruce had been killed in Ireland,
and the king's daughter, Marjory, had been married to the
Steward of Scotland, and had died, leaving a son. By
the Act of 13 18 that son was heir of the crown, unless
King Robert should leave male issue, as he did. By the
same Act the principle of the succession to the crown of
Scotland was laid down so as to obviate any misunder-
standing of the divergence, made by the Act of 13 15 for
special purposes. The succession, not being subject to
partitions like a private fief, was to go first to the male
issue of the sovereign in their order of birth, next to
the female issue, and these being exliausted, then to
collaterals in the same fashion. The Act is thus an
exposition of that pure law of hereditary descent which
how renders the succession to the British throne as dis-
tinct and certain as any process in the exact sciences. If
the principle had been admitted in England as distinctly
as it was stated in the Scots Act, there would have been
no room for the Wars of the Roses.^

The king appears soon afterwards to have gone with
a force into the dominions of John of Lorn, which, as the
chroniclers say, he brought under his subjection. These
Celtic communities had, however, an elastic nature, which

^ Scots Acts (Record edition), i. 104. ^ Ibid., i. 105.

VOL. II. S

274 ROBERT BRUCE.

enabled them to bear a conquest lightly, and resume their
old condition when it was over. I'he notices of this
expedition are of the briefest, and it left no mark in the
reduction of these regions under the feudal organisation of
the kingdom.

This occurred in the middle of a larger enterprise, which
touches, but does not belong to, the history of Scotland
Edward Bruce, the king's impetuous and chivalrous
younger brother, was invited to liberate Ireland from the
English yoke, and. threw himself impetuously into the
project. This enterprise, however, was undertaken under
conditions which give it an interest in both islands. If
the people of Scotland were likely more keenly to resent,
and more determinedly to resist, the Norman invaders
than the Irish were, yet these were likely, after long con-
tinuance, to find the yoke more galling, since their mas-
ters brought with them that antipathy of race against race,
which is hardened rather than softened by political com-
bination. It was all the worse for the unhappy Celt that
the Ncrman and the Saxon had common elements of
brotherhood, which outgrew the political effect of con-
quest ; this only enhanced the number of the Irishman's
oppressors. For the natives there was hardly any law or
political protection. In a remonstrance sent by a body
of the chiefs to Pope John XXII., they assert, among
other grievances, that the murder of an Irishman was not
punished as a felony, and that it was held as doctrine, and
uttered by the English clergy, that it was no more crime
to slay a native than to kill a dog. The chieftains an-
nounce that, influenced by these and suchlike intolerable
oppressions, they have called for aid on Edward de Bruce,
the illustrious Earl of Carrick, brother-german of the most
illustrious Lord Robert, by the grace of God King of the
Scots, and a descendant of some of the most noble of
their own ancestors.^

Now that England was making no serious menace —

1 This remonstrance, as given in the Scotichronicon, has liccn
accepted by the Irish archseologists. See Todd's Life of St Patrick,
p. 237, and authorities there referred to.

DEALINGS WITH THE PAPAL COURT, 1315-18. 2^$

was, in fact, for the time intimidated — any opei.ing for
the temporary employment of the fighting men of Scot-
land seems to have been gladly welcomed ; and Edward
got the use of a large force. His brother, King Robert,
followed him with reinforcements, becoming a leader in a
formidable war, as if the future of his own country did not
provide him with a sufficient amount of serious occupa-
tion. The adventures and achievements of the two are
among the most exciting chapters in the romance of war.
Many brave Scots were thus lost to their own country in
the hour of need that was coming. Among the deaths,
the most conspicuous was that of Edward Bruce himself;
but that it was a loss to his country is open to question,
for, gallant and popular as he was, his reputation was not
of the kind that promises a good pilot in a storm.

There are some mysteries yet to be solved in this curi-
ous episode in history, so far as the motives and object of
the Bruces are concerned. The natural solution is, that a
Norman knight having by his sword achieved for himself
a kingdom in Scotland, here was another Norman knight,
his brother, who thought he might make a venture for
equal fortune in another country where the people were
kicking against the English yoke. On the other hand
comes the question, whether any tradition of the claims
through which the Scots of Albion professed to rule the
Scots of Ireland may have lingered, and reappeared to
create a mimicry of the English demands of superiority
over Scotland, in the theory that Ireland should be held
as feudally subordinate to the crown of Scotland.^

We now, aiter an interval of some years, find the politi-
cal condition of Scotland pressing for serious considera-
tion at the Papal Court. We have seen how thoroughly
the merits of the case for Scotland were understood there
at the time when Baliol was nominally king. For some
time afterwards there came nothing from that tribunal but

^ The chief iafprmation, beyond the usual chronicles, about the
invasion of Ireland by the Bruces, is perhaps to be found in the Annali
of Ireland, by Friar Clyn and Thady Dowling, edited for the Irisb
Archaeological Society by Dean Butler.

2/6 ROBERT PRUCE,

one or two injunctions to the Scots to preserve peace and
order, which were uncertain in their sound, and certainly
were not friendly. The remark generally made on this
change of tone is, that the Pope was deserting his allies
the Scots ; but in reality it was in the Papal Court as it is
in other courts — there were no suitors connected witli the
disputes in Britain pushing their cause there, and so there
was no corresponding business done. Bruce's slaughter
of the Red Com3m was a clear case of discipline, apart
from all national questions, and excommunication wu.s
issued, but it was unheard in the din of war. After the
ruin that had fallen on his invading force, the King of
England had a keen desire for peace, but the Scots would
not let him have it unless he acknowledged their indepen-
dent sovereignty. Application was made to Rome for a
pacificating bull, which was issued. It was addressed to
our dearest son in Christ, the illustrious Edward, King of
Elngland, and our beloved son, the noble Robert de Bruce,
conducting himself as King of Scotland. It lamented the
loss of Christian blood in civil wars, when the rescue of
the Holy Land was in vain calling for champions, and
adjudged a truce between the countries for two years,
excommunicating those who might break it.^

The Papal Court no doubt acted under the influence of
England on this occasion ; but Scotland, a country that
had been able to free itself and establish a government in
thorough co-operation with the local Church, was entitled
to serious consid^ation. There were some internal affairs
in England at the same time demanding attention ; and
the Pope appointed two cardinals on a mission to Eng-
land, with a staff of assistants and attendants worthy of
so august an embassy. They arrived in England in the
autumn of 13 17. The cardinals sent two messengers,
under a safe-conduct, to transact their business with the
King of Scots. These wrote a confidential account of the
result to their masters. It described a very curious inter-
view, with a vivacity almost unnatural among the solemn
writs of the Papal establishment. The messengers found

^ Foedera (Record edition), ii. 317,

DEALINGS WITH THE PAPAL COURT, 1315-18. 277

the king, whose courtesy and affability seem to have had
much influence on them. No one was more anxious to
stop the effusion of blood ; no one more devoutly con-
scious of die Holy Father's beneficence in making efforts
in that direction. Then came the presentation of a sealed
missive — perhaps it was a duplicate of a letter of exhorta-
tion delivered to the King of England.^

King Robert looked at the address. The document
was not for him : it was addressed to Robert Bruce,
governing in Scotland. He himself was King of Scotland.
He became jocular on the indelicacy of opening a letter
probably intended for another; he could find several per-
sons of the name of Robert Bruce, who might have a
better claim on it than himself. The messengers pleaded
the reluctance of the Court of the Holy Father to use any
expressions committing him to a side in a temporal dis-
pute. " Exactly," said the king, ** but that is just what
has been done by depriving me of my title of king." The
messengers pressed on him the consideration of dispens-
ing with ceremonials when the interests of humanity were
at stake. The king said he would open the missive if
Parliament would permit him, but he could not have their
decision for some time. The messengers expressed their
opinion that, even if the king had chosen to drop the
formal objection, the Parliament would not have con-
curred in the concession. They found symptoms of very
general indignation at the withdrawal of the title of king ;
it was set down as an insult done at the demand of Eng-
land ; and they mentioned that there was a poor man, sent
with the usual letters of courtesy on the present Pope's
accession, kept hanging on for three months, not being
permitted to enter Scotland because he was not accredited
to the king. Finally, the messengers prayed of King
Robert that he would in the mean time suspend hostili-
ties ; but to this he gave a blunt refusal.^

Still the cardinals determined to make an effort to pro-
claim the bull, and got a monk in Berwick to undertake
the duty. He found the king in a wood at Old Cambus,

* Foedera (Record edition), ii. 317. * Ibid., ii. 34a.

27S ROBERT BRUCE.

busily preparing engines for the siege ot Berwick. IFe
would not acknowledge anything not addressed to him as
king. The monk preferred two requests — to be allowed
to go forward to the Scots clergy and transact his business,
or to be sent with a safe-conduct to Berwick. Both were
denied ; and attempting to find his way back he fell among
thieves, who robbed him of all his Papal documents. The
monk was of opinion that in this illegitimate forni the
parchments found their way to " the said Robert Bruce "
— and the supposition is probable enough.

A new bull, heaping upon previous offences the con-
tumely thrown on the Papal messengers, was sent to the
cardinals, with vehement instructions to enforce it, along
with the personal excommunication of Bruce for the
slaughter of Comyn. I'here are certain established
channels, however, through which all judicial writs, eccle-
siastical or civil, must find their way to the persons
affected by them ; and through the national sympathies
of the faithful clergy, it came to pass that no hostile
documents from Rome could be legitimately served within
Scotland.

There was perhaps more than one reason why the
emissary of the cardinals should not be permitted to re-
turn peaceably to Berwick. He had seen, and apparently
had examined with a critical eye, the engines which the
Scots were preparing for the siege of that town, working
at them, as he said, day and night to accomplish their
wicked ends.^ The siege seems to have been a far easier
affair than Bruce expected to find it. There had at that
time, indeed, fallen upon the English one of those fits of
gloom and depression which have been known to visit the
bravest nations after very heavy military disasters, and to
make them act for a time like a doomed race with whom
nothing can prosper. The town was entered almost
without resistance, friends within having, it was said, given
secret assistance. Even the castle held out feebly, and
again their commercial capital belonged to the Scots. It
was said that they in their turn found it full of costly mer-

' Foedera (Record edition), ii. 34a

RECOVERY OF BERWICK, 1317-18. 279

^handise. The English had now possessed it for above
twenty years, and trade seems naturally to have flowed
to it in their hands as it flowed before. The continual
contests surrounding the place afterwards gradually ren-
dered it unpropitious to the merchant and the shipper — it is
certain that in later times its harbour was not suited for
a maritime trade. It is possible that in the course of cen-
turies the depth of water may have decreased ; but pro-
bably, like many other deserted seafaring places in Scot-
land, it could accommodate the small craft of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, although insufficient for the
heavier vessels of modern times.

This loss seems to have roused the energies of England.
Bruce determined to preserve the fortress instead of level-
ling it as he had many others. It would appear, indeed,
that the English had replaced the old lumbering fortifica-
tions of the Scots with a regular fortress in their own Ed-
wardian style, some remnants of which may still be seen
conspicuous among the glacis and counterscarps of that
Vauban school which was again to replace the Norman.
The acquisition was hence not to be tlirown away, and
Bruce made immediate preparatious against an attack
which he knew would exhaust every available resource of
the mechanical science of the day. The Scots were then,
and for centuries afterwards, poor engineers; they were
better sokliers in the field than on the wall, and were often
beholden to skilful foreigners in siege-work. For the pro-
tection of Ber>vick they had the aid of a skilful Flemish
engineer named Crab ; and to meet the gigantic operations
of the enemy they had need of all he could do for them.

There were some remarkable specialties in the siege
suggested by the nature of the ground. On the flat sandy
plains to the north great mounds were raised and ditches
dug — a fortress, in fact, was constructed to prevent the
approach of an army of relief on the side of Scotland.
Before it could help Berwick such an army must thus take
a pkice nearly as strong. There must have been reasons,
though they are not very distinct, wny Bruce should have
found it necessary to allow such works to go on. Next
an attack of a peculiar kind was made from the sea. It was

280 ROBERT BRUCE.

supposed that from one of the wooden castles then carried
by vessels — whence part of a ship is at this day called the
forecastle — the city wall might be commanded. The first
attempt, however, of this sort was baffled, and the ship
from which it was made was burnt

Ailother memorable feature in this siege was the trial of
a masterpiece in the kind of movable towers or caravans,
which were the prevalent tendency of the engineering
accomplishments of the day. There were among these
machines cats, wolves, and boars — the present was called
a sow. It was, in fact, a timber tower full of men, with
their catapults and other machines for assailing the wall,
towards which it was moved with enormous labour. It
seems to have been clear that if the garrison of Berwick
did not destroy the sow, the sow would batter down an
entrance in the city wall. The chances between the two
issues had run to a critical point, when one of the great
stones heaved over the wall by Crab's ingenious mechan-
ism shattered the roof of the sow, and put the movable
garrison within at the mercy of the besieged. As these,
such of them as were not too sorely crushed under the
shattered timbers, crawled out and made off, there was
great jocularity through the garrison about the sow having
" farrowed." For this time the English effort to recover
Berwick, tremendous as it was, was baffled.^

During the contest, of which Berwick was the centre,
parties of the Scots were at the old work in the northern
counties of England, with the view, according to the usual

^ Tlie sow seems to have become a favourite in England, and to
have been used after the introduction of artillery so far down as the
gresit civil wars of Charles I. We have this account of one brought
up to attack Canon-Frome» in Herefordshire : ** The engine was such
a one as the like hath not been since these wars. The Roysters call
it a sow ; it was carried upon great wheels, and to be drawn with
oxen ; it was made with rooms or lofts one over another, musket-
])roof, and verv strong, out of which were holes to play and shoot out.
it was so high that it was above all the works at Cfanon-Frome, so
that they could discharge over the works ; besides which a door
opened to bring them into the works, out of which a bridge went
for their entrance." — Vicar's Chronicle, cited Grose, Mil Antiq.»
U. 369.

CHAPTER OF MITTON, 1319. 28 1

phrase, of " creating a diversion " in favour of the garrison
of Berwick. There had been two or three attempts by the
English, both by sea and land, to retaliate on Scotland,
but anything done leaves faint and feeble traces when set
beside the terrible havoc worked in the northern counties
of England. For a time after the proclamation of the
Papal peace there was a profession of observing it in
England, but there was none in Scotland ; and unless the
English were prepared to submit to everything, they must
break the Papal peace too. Their chief stand was made
in a peculiar manner, intended, no doubt, to bring up in
their cause influences against which the arm of the flesh
is as naught. The Scots were commanded by Douglas
and Randolph — both in the early prime of life, and now,
by hard and varied service, thorough adepts in all that a
military leader of the day could know or do. Discontent
kept away many who should have served in the English
feudal force, and the part embodied was exclusively de-
voted to the siege of Berwick, The defence of the north
devolved on the Archbishop of York, under whose auspices
an army was improvised. A number of the ecclesiastics,
carried off apparently by an expectation of a special inter-
vention, joined this force. They seem to have been
utterly untrained in war, and to have known so little of
the use of the armour and weapons, that these came as
unhandily to them as those of King Saul to David. This
motley force met the Scots invaders at Mitton, near Bo-
rough Bridge in Yorkshire, on the 20th September 1319.
But not the sacrilege of the Scots in scorning the Papal
peace, nor the holiness of the cause which had brought
champions from the cloister, nor the sacred sacerdotal
character of these champions, could hinder the arm of the
flesh from prevailing. Scots spearmen, now thoroughly
hardened to war, made a memorable havoc among them.
Three thousand is the number said to have been left dead
—enough for a critical battle ; and the conquerors in their
pleasantry called the affair the Chapter of Mitton, on ac-
count of the prevalence of the ecclesiastical feature among
their victims.
The northern counties of England had now suflfercd for

282 ROBERT BRUCE.

several years from army after army of marauders, each
treading on the heels of another. What seems surprising
is that there should have been in the land people to be
attacked or plunder to be removed by those who joined
in the later inroads. Yet in that now spoken of the Scots
just failed to catch a great prize — no less than the Queen
of England sojourning in York. It is more expressive,
however, of the desolation made by the invaders, that by
a writ of the year 13 19, certain towns or villages, more
than sixty in number, and many of them recognised mar-
ket-towns of the present day, are exempted from taxation
on account of the utter destitution brought on their inhal>
itants by the Scots invasion.^

Yet all the laws of war, even those of our own time,
would justify this terrible and indiscriminate retribution
on the English people for the injuries which the Scots had
suffered from the English Government. The longer, in-
deed, that the cruel persecution continued, the more ample
was its justification. Just after the battle of Bannockbum
it seemed needless, since the English king might be ex-
pected to abandon his claims on Scotland; but all the
while Scotland was soliciting peace and the acknowledg-
ment of independence, and all the while her solicitations
were thrown back with scorn. The cruel retaliation has
the best of justifications — it became in the end effective.
England at last spoke of a truce from hostilities, as a pre-
liminary to some ulterior permanent arrangement It was
adjusted on the 21st of December 13 19, and was to last
for two years.

On the part of Scotland, it was at the same time de-
termined to bring a pressure to bear on the Papal Court.
To evade responsibility by stopping up the proper official
channels through which the writs of the Holy Court had
to pass, might serve a temporary turn, but was not a wise
permanent policy for a Christian state in that age. The
Papal Court, too, showed itself very determined. It was
trying the policy of iteration — issuing excommunications
and other denunciatory documents in rapid successioUi

^ Foedera (Record edition), ii. 409.

APPEAL TO THE POPE, 1320-22. 283

feach carrying additional emphasis from the faiUire of its
predecessor. Thus the records of the time are strewed
with these fuhninations against Scotland, while the nation
is supposed to have remained in serene calm, unconscious
of the ecclesiastical storm outside. Everything was of
course done by England that could be done to give effi-
ciency to the Papal edicts. The occasion of the adjust-
ment of the truce was not lost — in fact, it was improved
in a manner creditable to the ingenuity of the King of
England's advisers. He could not treat with an excom-
municated man like Robert Bruce without obtaining a
Papal dispensation for doing so ; he applied for the dis-
pensation, and it was graciously conceded.^

In a Parliament assembled in the Abbey of Arbroath, a
solemn address to the Pope was adopted on the 6th of
April 1320. In the last appearance before the Papal
Court, Scotland had made a powerful impression. The
country had since let the enemy get the ear of that tri-
bunal, with no perceptible effort to counteract the influ-
ence; and had borne, almost unmoved, the torrent of
Papal invective consequently scattered against it. And
now, in making once for all a great remonstrance against
the wrongs thus accumulated on the nation, the Scots
Parliament were successful in accomplishing their object,
\vith a becoming and mournful dignity that has made their
remonstrance illustrious among the utterings of national
wrongs and appeals for national mercy and justice. At
the beginning a word is said in answer to the English
fabulous genealogies which carried back the subjection of
Scotland to the Trojan line of succession ; but this is
quickly abandoned, and Scotland pleads her immediate
cause, thus : —

The country had been in peace and content, and un-
practised in war, when the great King of England, find-
ing it so and without a head, under the guise of friendly
intervention, attempted to destroy its liberties and conquer

^ " Ad Papam pro licentia habendi tractatum cum Scotis quamvu
excommunicatis." — Fcedera (Record edition), ii. 391. '* Bulla dd
licentia tractandi de pace cum excommunicatis." — Ibid.

2S4 ROBERT BRUCE.

it for himself. These acts of rapacity and cruelty are set
forth, and emphasis not too strong is judiciously laid on
the ruin brought by him on ecclesiastics and religious
establishments. Then came the deliverer and the restorer
of freedom, whose achievements for the country are ac-
knowledged with a fervent and decorous gratitude. To
him, for what he has achieved for them, the people of
Scotland are bound to adhere ; yet, to show that their
determination not to submit to England predominates
over every other feeling, they assure the Pope that if their
beloved king were to submit to the supremacy of the King
of England, they would cast liim forth and choose another
ruler ; for so long as a hundred of them remain alive they
are determined not to be subject to the King of England.
By all the considerations of love and mercy that should
influence the head of Christianity, his Holiness is besought
to interpose and move the heart of the King of England
to leave the Scots to the enjoyment of their liberties in their
own remote and obscure corner of the world. The con-
cluding sentences draw p>ersuasive arguments out of matter
which had been giving much trouble and uneasiness to the
Court of Rome — the degeneracy of zeal among Christian
princes for the defence of the Holy Land against the Sara-
cens. The Scots nation were willing to join in the good
cause, but they could not while a powerful neighbour's
aggressions bound them to the defence of their homes and
liberties.^

^ No abridgment can convey a fair notion of this memorable docu-
ment : indeed, much of its power and terseness is lost in translation
from the Latin original. Among such translations as the Author has
noticed, the most spirited was printed at the time of the Revolution of
1688, and reprinted in 1820 in the collection called Miscellanea Sco-
tica. It is more spirited than the others, because, instead of attempt-
ing to retain the terseness of the Latin, it expands into tolerably idio-
matic English. The following is the essential part — ^that which
follows on the short exordium about the antiquity of Scotland : —

** Upon the weighty consideration of these things, our most holy
fathers, your predecessors, did with many great and singular favours
and privileges, fence and secure this kingdom and people, as being the
peculiar charge and care of the brother of St Peter ; so that our na-
tion hath hitherto lived in freedom and quietness under their protec-
tion, till the magnificent King Edward, father to the present King oi

APPEAL TO THE POPE, 1320-22. 285

As appropriate to this point, the Pope's memorialists
venture on a general political remark. They say that the
great states are entirely occupied in attempts to subdue
their weaker neighbours. It was quite true. The states

England, did, under the colour of friendship and allyance, or con-
federacie, with innumerable oppressions, infest us, who minded no
fraud or deceit, at a time wlien we were without a king or head, and
when the people were unacquainted with warres and invasions. It is
impossible for any whose own experience hath not informed him to
describe, or fully to understand, the injuries, blood, and violence, the
depredations and fire, the imprisonments of prelates, the burning;,
slaughter, and robberie committed upon holy persons and religious
houses, and a vast multitude of other barbarities, which that king
execute on this people, without sparing of any sex or age, religion
or order of men whatsoever.

** But at length it pleasetl God, who only can heal after wounds^ to
restore us to libertie from these innumerable calamities, by our most
serene Prince King and Lord Robert, who, for the delivering of his
|)eople and his own rightful inheritance from the enemies' hand, did,
like another Josua or Maccabeus, most chearfully undergo all manner
of toyle, fatigue, hardship, and hazard. The Divine Providence, the
right of succession by the laws and customs of the kingdom (which
we will defend till death), and the due and lawful! consent and assent
of all the people, made him our king and prince. To him we are
obliged and resolved to adhere in all things, both upon the account
of his right and his own merit, as being the person who hath restored
the people's safety, in defence of their liberties. But, after all, if this
prince shall leave these principles he hath so nobly pursued, and con-
.«!ent that we or our kingdom be subjected to the king or people of
England, we will immediately endeavour to expell him as our enemy,
and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and will make an-
other king who will defend our liberties : for so long as there shall
but one hundred of us remain alive, we will never give consent to sub-
ject our selves to the dominion of the English. For it is not glory,
it is not riches, neither is it honour, but it is liberty alone that we fight
and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life.

** For these reasons, most reverend father and lord, we do, with
most earnest prayers, from our bended knees and hearts, beg and
entreat your Holiness, that you may be pleased, with a sincere and
cordial piety, to consider that with Ilim whose vicar on earth you
are there is no respect nor distinction of Jew nor Greek, Soots nor
English, and that with a tender and fatherly eye, you may look upon
the calamities and straits brought upon us and the Church of God by
the English ; and that you may admonish and exhort the King of
England (who may well rest satisfied with his own possessions, since
that kingdom of old used to be sufficient for seven or moe kings), to
suffer us to live at peace in that narrow spot of Scotland, beyond which

2S6 ROBERT BRUCE.

that were to be the great powers of Europe were then in
rapid growth, and the food on which they grew was the
small, separate, feeble states scattered round them.

The Scots memorial had an immediate effect at the

we have no habitation, since we desire nothing but our own, and we,
on our part, as farr as we are able, with respect to our own condition,
shall effectually agree to him in everything that may procure our quiet.

''It is your concernment, most holy father, to interpose in this,
when you see how far the violence and barbaritie of the Pagans is let
loose to rage against Christendom for punishing of the sins of the
Christians, and how much they dayly encroach upon the Christian
territories. And it is your interest to notice, that there be no ground
given for reflecting on your memory, if you should suffer any part of
the Church to come under a scandal or ecclipse (which we pray God
may prevent) during your times.

'*Let it therefore please your Holiness to exhort the Christian
princes not to make the warres between them and their neighbours a
pretext for not going to the relief of the Holy Land, since that is not
the true cause of the impediment ; the truer ground of it is, that they
have a much nearer prospect of advantage, and far less opposition, in
the subduine of their weaker neighbours. And God (who is ignorant
of nothing) knows with how much chearfulness both our king and we
would goe thither, if the King of England would leave us in peace,
and we doc hereby testihe and declare it to the Vicar of Christ, and
to all Christendom.

" But, if your Holyness shall be too credulous of the English misre-
presentations, and not give firm credit to what we have said, nor de-
sist to favour the English, to our destruction, wee must believe that
the Most High will lay to your charge all the blood, loss of souls, and
other calamities that shall follow on either hand betwixt us and them.

** Your Holiness, in granting our just desires, will oblidge us in every
case, where our duty shall require it, to endeavour your satisfaction,
as becomes the obedient sons of the Vicar of Christ.

" We commit the defence of our cause to Him who is the Sover-
aigne King and Judge, we cast the burden of our cares upon Him, and
hope for such an issue as may give strength and courage to us, and
bring our enemies to nothing. The most high God long preserve your
serenity and Holyness to his holy Church."— Miscellanea Scotica, iii.
125-128.

This is entirely a lay document, and for some special reason the
clei^ are not mentioned as concurring in it as they concurred in the
other legislative acts and national state papers of the day. It is in
the name of the barons, the free tenants, and the whole community of
Scotland ; but the names of the most eminent barons are given —
and the list is valuable, as giving us the avowed heads of the national
party at that time. They are— Duncan, Earl of Fife ; Randolph,
Karl of Moray ; Patrick de Dunbar, p:arl of March ; Malice, Earl ol

APPEAL TO TltE POPE, 1320-22. 287

Papal Court ; the character of that effect, as it may be
gathered from the documents that followed, might be pro-
nounced astounding. The fulminations against Scotland
at once stopped, but those which had gone forth were not
immediately revoked. An admonitory bull, dated at the
end of July, was addressed to King Edward. It did not
show acquaintance witli the nature of the dispute on either
side. It exhorted the king to consider whether, after all,
it would not be better to come to some teims with the
governor of the kingdom of Scotland. These wars, it was
said, created sad misery and devastation, and it was ever
uncertain how they might end ; and there was the cause of
the Holy Land neglected and the Paynim unchecked,
while the potentates of Christian Europe were brawling
among each other. ^ Presently aftenvards the Pope writes
to say that two commissioners and ambassadors were
pleading the cause of the Scots before him — Edward de
Mambuisson and Adam de Gordon. They prayed for the

Strathearn ; Malcolm, Earl of Lennox; William^ Earl of Ross;
Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney ; William, Earl of Suther-
land ; Walter, the Steward of Scotland ; William de Soulis, Butler
of Scotland ; James, Lord of Douglas ; Roger de Mowbray ; David,
Lord of Brechin ; David de Graham ; Ingleram d'Umfraville ; John
of Menteith, Gustos of the Gomitatus of Menteith ; Alexander Eraser ;
Gilbert de Hay, Constable of Scotland ; Robert de Keith, Marishal of
Scotland ; Henry de St Glair, John de Graham, David de Lyndesay,
William Oliphant, Patrick de Graham, John de Fendon, William
de Abemethy, David de Wemyss, William de Montfitchet, Fergus
de Ardcossan, Eustace de Maxwell, William de Ramsay, William de
Monte Alto, Allan de Murray, Donald Campbell, John C^imbroun,
Reginald le Cheyne, Alexander de Seton, Andrew de T-ascelyne, and
Alexander de Straton.

In the hall of the General Register House for Scotland may be
seen the duplicate of this address to the Pope, which was preserved
at home. It is worn and a little decayed, but has been preserved on
the whole with such pious care that few words are illegible. Many
of the seals still dangling to it show clear impressions in their green
or red wax. It was engraved by Anderson lor his Diplomata, and
printed by Sir George Mackenzie in his tract on Precedence. A fac«
simile of the parchment, seals and all, is contained in the first volume
of the Scots Acts ; another is in the second part of the Collection of
Chronicles and Records edited under the auspices of the Lord Clerk
Register.

^ Foedera (Record edition), u. 431.

288 ROBERT BRUCE.

relaxation of the interdicts and other Papal writs issued to
the detriment of Scotland ; but the Pope said he did not
find it among their credentials or instructions that they
were to make such an application to him. He would
grant no relaxation, but he agreed to suspend the ques-
tion until the calends of April. It was the postponement
of a difficulty on a point of form — ^a common resource in
the holy tribunal as in many others.^

Admonished by the Papal Court, beset with difficulties
in England, and harassed by a Scots invasion of the usual
kind immediately on the conclusion of the truce, there
seemed nothing for it but to submit to the humiliation of
treating for good and all with Scotland. Twelve conmiis-
sioners were appointed — four to be a quorum — with power
to treat with Scotland for a permanent settlement.^ But
presently afterwards King Edward was victorious over his
dangerous home enemy, Lancaster, and there was an im-
mediate change in the policy of England. This was in
very triumphant terms announced to the Papal Court,
with an assurance that no more trouble would be given
about truces or other difficulties in the matter of Scotland.
His Holiness had, out of his beneficence, interposed to
give a breathing space, and Edward in his hour of need
had been glad of it, but he required such help no more.
By the blessed God's favour his hands were now free at
home in England, and he was to take the proper steps to
set matters right elsewhere.^ This was early in 1322.
Again there were preparations for a great and final invasion
of Scotland. But the country was stronger than it had been
eight years before, and was not compelled by the force of
circumstances to risk a critical battle on a given day and
at a given spot. To give England a foretaste of the char-
acter of the new war, the Scots began it by a raid across
the border, as far as Lancashire, where, according to the
accounts of the day, they swept away with them in their
usual light-handed manner a booty well worth their pains —
though how their previous pillaging should have left any-
thing in that part of England worth carrying off is a mystery.

* F(Rdcra (Rec. cd.), ii. 432. « Ibid., ii. 440, 441. » Ibid. ii. 481.

INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1322. 289

In midsummer a great English iirmy was again ready to
invade Scotland — the chroniclers say, as they did of tie
army defeated at Bannockbum, that it numbered a hun-
dred thousand men. The policy of the Scots was the
same that Wallace tried before the battle of Falkirk, to
leave the enemy to march over bare fields, and to keep
clear of a battle. The people in the southern counties
had gradually assimilated themselves to the conditions of
such a warfare. They lived in huts which, if the enemy
thought it worth while to destroy them, could be easily
rebuilt with the stone and turf at hand. Their agricultural
riches were far less than they had been before the war
began, and they had got into the way of scampering off
on the shortest notice with their poor belongings, getting
in among those broken uplands not far distant from any
part of the country, where they were out of the way of the
march of heavily-appointed amjies like those which Eng-
land now sent forth.

The season was well on in August when this new army
crossed the border ; but the harvest cannot have advanced
so far as to afford any available food, for we are told that
all along as they went was blank famine. There was much
jocularity about their obtaining near Tranent, in East
Lothian, a bull — a poor lame beast left behind when its
brethren were driven to the hills. The Scots army waited
beyond the Firth of Forth, leaving the invaders in the
hands of a deadlier enemy — starvation. This, according
to the English accounts, did its work with signal effect
while the army was still in the Lothians. That within a
day or two's march of their own frontier an army should
have been so utterly ruined, as the English chroniclers tell
us, is astounding, from the almost inconceivable careless-
ness it reveals in the preparations for invasion. The disas-
trous picture is completed when we are told that the starved
wretches who were able to drag themselves across the bor^
der died in multitudes, from the rapacity with which they
fell upon the food presented to them on -English ground.^

* The most distinct account of the affair on the English side will be
found in Walsingham (Rolls edition), i. 166. . *

VOL. II. T

390 ROBERT BRUCE.

The Scots chroniclers charge the retreating army with
the destruction of the Abbeys of Holyrood and Melrose,
and the Monastery of Dryburgh.^

The Scots army was on this occasion able to do what
Wallace had intended — hang on the heels of the fugitives,
and harass them in every shape. Here was another of
those marauding invasions of the north of England, so
numerous that it is difficult to remember their order of
succession. The inhabitants seem to have taken example
from Scots practice, and to have learned to drive their
cattle southward. This is attested by royal warrants to
the Sheriff of York and* his assistants, directing them to
see that the animals are hospitably received within their
jurisdiction.^

King Edward was resting in Billand Abbey when the
alarm came that the Scots were upon him. Luckily for
himself he did not trust his safety to his own camp,
strongly posted in the neighbourhood, but took flight,
pursued by the Steward at the head of five hundred men,
until he got safe within the gates of York. The Scots
were in good force under their king and Randolph, and
they determined to drive the enemy from their position on
a rocky eminence ; these might be called an army in a
fortified camp, but were in truth rather a body of dispirited
refugees seeking safety. They were dislodged by small
parties climbing up into the broken ground which pro-
tected them, and it is said that in this duty King Robert
got good service from some of the " Irishry " of Argyle
and the Isles, who formed pait of his army.* So dislodged
from their strength, they were dispersed, with loss in killed
and captives.

^ Scotichron., xii. 4. About this period we ma^ take Bower as an
authority, making allowance for his prejudice against England. He
cannot be quite correct in saving that Dryburgh was entirely reduced
to powder, since part of the'Duilding yet remaining is of an older date
than the invasion.

' There are t^^'o of these contemporary with the Scots inroads be*
fore and after the English invasion. — Focdern (Record edition), ii.
490, 496.

• Barbour, cxxxvL

PROFFERS FROM NORTH OF ENGLAND, 1323. 291

About this time the English Government seem to have
become awake to a very alarming feature bearing on their
dispute with Scotland. It would naturally be supposed
that the sufferings of the northern counties from the cease-
less incursions of the Scots would imbitter the inhabitants
and their leaders against the enemies of their king. On
the contrary, a feeling seems to have arisen that the King
of England was unable to protect them, and that the
King of Scots might be a more desirable master. There
had been of old much community of feeling between these
northern districts and their neighbours of the Lothians,
and the traditions that they had formerly been one com-
munity were probably still alive. Through ihe course of
the war occasional instances turn up where persons of in-
fluence in the old disputed districts are found on the side
of the Scots. ^

In occasional letters of Remission, in which Edward 11.
offered to receive into his peace all those of the Scots
nation who might proffer their allegiance to him, it was
specially stipulated that the privilege was not to extend to
such native-born inhabitants of England as had taken part
against him.^

In January 1323 King Edward wrote to Hartcla, Earl
of Carlisle, the Warden of the Marches, stating his aston-
ishment at' hearing that the earls, barons, and knights of
the northern counties had been adjusting on their own
account a truce with the Scots, enemies of the crown, and
severely rating his warden — ^>vhom he suspected not to be
ignorant of this affair — for not having at once informed
his sovereign of it.^ The person, indeed, whom he thus
addressed, was deeply implicated in the secret treaty.
When Lancaster was strengthening himself against the
king, he was in correspondence with Randolph ahd other
leaders of the Scots ; and it is pretty clear that his object

' **In 1 3 19 Thomas Gray was, for gootl services against the Scots,
gifted with certain lands in Howick, near Alnwick, forfeited b;-
reason of their owner, John Maitland, having joined the Scots." —
Introduction to Scalacronica, xix., xx. See the instance of De Ros
above, p. 197, note.

' Foedera (Record edition), ii. 440. * Ibid., ii. 502.

292 ROBERT BRUCE.

was to gain the northern barons to himself by an arrange*
ment which would exempt them from these devastating
inroads of the Scots.^ Lancaster was defeated and exe-
cuted, and as a reward for effective aid in this service,
Hartcla was received into royal favour, became Earl of
Carlisle, and was intrusted with the onerous duty of guard-
ing the marches. NVhatever mystery may attend Lan-
caster's movements, it is clear that Hartcla went decidedly
into the project of the northern barons for a separate
understanding with Scotland. The letter just cited was
addressed to him while he was believed to have concealed
what he should have told We next find a proclamation
for Hartcla's capture as a traitor. He was seized, and
charged with employing the influence he had acquired
through the high offices of trust conferred on him, in
treating with the king's enemies of Scotland ; and he was
executed after the usual manner of a traitor in England.^
The evidence that he had worked for such a fate is
aided by incidental testimony. There exists in the library
of the Vatican a parchment, professing to be a treaty be-
tween the Government of Scotland on the one side, and
Hartcla and his followers on the other. It gives King
Robert his full title.* The professed object is to put an
end to the invasions of Scotland by England, and to the
devastations of the northern counties by the Scots. To
this end the King of Scots is to lead an army into Eng-
land. When he has crossed the border, he is not only to
spare Hartcla and his followers, protecting their lands as
if they were part of his own dominions of Scotland, but he
is to co-operate with them as represented by their leader.
For the adjustment of any disputed points a council of
twelve is to be chosen — six by the King of Scots, and six
by the other party to the treaty. In the preamble of
motives usual to such agreements, there standis along with

^ Proceedings against the Earl of Lancaster, State Trials, i. 44.

' Fcedera (Record edition), ii. 504, 507, 509.

* Inter serenissimum principem dominum Robertum Dei grada
regem Scotoruro, illustrem et magnificum virum dominum Andream
de Arcla comitem Karleoli super pacis reformacionc inter regna pre*
dicta.— Tractatus Proc. Antiq. Scot., iii. 458.

PROFFERS FROM NORTH OF ENGLAND, 1323. 293

the promotion of internal peace in the two countries the
prospect of each being free to promote the crusades.
King Robert, too, is to found a monastery for the souls of
those slain in the war.^ From the tenor of all that is
known of this affair, and especially from the number and
power of those embarked in it, and their distinct animosity
to the King of England, it may be inferred that, had the
peace not been speedily concluded, the negotiations would
have opened the question of stretching the marches of
Scotland to the Humber.

It is in harmony with this strange piece of by-play in
the history of the war, that in the ensuing negotiations
King Robert put in a claim of dominion over the old
debated land north of the Humber. If this was done
merely as a threat, to weigh against the determination on
the other side not to acknowledge the independent sover-
eignty of Scotland, it would have all the more weight that
things had occurred to render the fulfilment of such a
demand not utterly chimerical.

Such considerations, taking weight from the warlike
spirit of the Scots and their continued success, pressed
urgently on the Government of England the establishment
of a permanent, peace, and the question what should be
given for it was solemnly discussed in a great council.
The great difficulty was the acknowledgment of indepen-
dence. Apart from the general desire of every party in
diplomacy to give as little and take as much as possible,
it was natural that England should try to keep the name
at least of the great conquest to the very last. But it was
a point on which the other party were absolute in their
general demand, and sensitive to everything that appeared
evasive. King Robert put into the conferences an angry
remonstrance against a form of truce, in which the people

* Concordatio facta inter Anglicos ct Scotos 3d January 1322-23,
communicated by Professor Muncli, Proc Ant. Scot., iii. 454. This
critical document seems to have been negotiated at Lochmaben. Its
phraseology leaves room to doubt how far King Robert was acquainte<l
with the transaction. He undertakes "per nobilem virum Thomam
Ranulphi comitem Mora vise dominum vail is Anandix et Manniv
nepotem dicti Regis Scociae.'*

294 ROBERT BRUCE.

of Scotland were the party dealt with, maintaining that it
was more insulting than its predecessors, which, if they
did not acknowledge a king, at all events professed to
treat with a government. The affair resolved itself into a
sort of compromise or sufferance. Bruce and his people
were permitted to take the titles of king and kingdom, but
England would not give them. On the 7th of June 1323,
King Robert issued a solemn instrument accepting of a
truce, or rather of a permanent peace, for his kingdom of
Scotland.^ In this document the war came to an end, but
the fundamental quarrel remained, and might break out
into contest at any time.

The peace was to last for thirteen years, so that before
it came to its natural close each country would have an
opportunity of gathering its fruits. To England it was
an immediate relief from a heavy pressure; and it was
hardly concluded when wTits were issued, dispensing with
the attendance of the chiefs of the Irishry and of certain
Gascon levies, called out to assist in the war against Scot-
land.2

It was now of moment that Scotland and the king
should be put right with the Papal Court. A missionary,
who would not have been expected to undertake such a
duty, agreed to go to Avignon, where the Court then was,
and try what his diplomatic skill could do for his country.
This was the king's nephew, Randolph, Earl of Moray.
He was, as we have seen him at Bannockbum, a hardy
warrior, not bred in a school likely to send forth pupils

^ ** Forma Treugse, ]>er Robertum de Brus signate, in promis prse-
termisso, sed at finem titulo regis expressato." — Foedera (Record
edition), ii. 524. We have only the copy of this document as pre-
served in England, and it is somewhat confused, as if mixed up mth
others, but it contains the essential clause: "Nous, Robert Roi
d'Escoce avandit, par assent des evesques, countes, et barones de
nostre roialme, les dites soeffrance et trieve, et toutes les choses suse-
scrites, et chescune de les pur nous, nos soutzmis aeredauntz et aid-
auntz, et pur notre roialme d'Escoce avandit voloms, looms, ratifiom.s
aggi^coms, et de certeine science approvomes.*' — For the preliminary
documents in the negotiations, see Foedera (Record edition), it 510^
511, 518, 521, 523.

Foedera (Record edition), ii. 523.

EMBASSY TO THE POPE, 1324. 295

irho could cope with subtle ecclesiastics in diplomacy,
yet he seems to have had wonderful success. As strange
as the mission itself is the source whence we know about
it — a bull addressed by the Pope to King Edward in
January 1324, in which his Holiness describes his inter-
views with the Scotsman with a distinct minuteness
closely approaching to gossip. He tells how the noble
Earl of Moray, having obtained an audience, spoke of his
anxiety to do service in the Holy Land in fulfilment of
a vow made by him ; and prayed that he might receive
at the Holy Father's hands the licences and indulgences
usually bestowed on those so devoting themselves. The
Pope, by his own account, declined the request : his peti-
tioner was but an individual man, who could not do much
in his own person for the great cause ; and in the granting
of his request there were heavy spiritual disabilities to be
taken off him as one of an excommunicated people. He
went on, however, to speak of the unhappy discords be*
tween King Edward and the Scots — how blessed a thing
it would be, not only for the contending parties but for all
Christendom, tliat their contest should come to an end,
and how opportune for the cause of the Christian contest
in the Holy Land. If the noble earl would turn himself
to giving effective service towards such a pacification, then
the Pope would be ready to favour him, always provided
that his country had submitted to the proper steps for
reconciliation with Holy Church.

Randolph immediately explained that ambassadors had
been formally appointed to lay the case of Scodand before
his Holiness and plead for reconciliation, and in humble
manner he requested that his Holiness would grant to
them a safe-conduct to travel towards his presence. The
Pope refused to provide them with such credentials ; but
promised to issue letters, apostolical, requisitorial, and
monitory, requiring the potentates through whose terri-
tories they had to pass, to look to their safety : — ^the dif-
ference seems to have been that the Pope would not
address to these excommunicated persons a document in
their favour, but had no objection to direct others to help
and protect them. Randolph then said that it was the

296 ROBERT BRUCE.

earnest desire of his uncle, the King of Scots, to join
King Philip of France in an expedition to the Holy Land
— and indeed, even if Philip of France should not carry
out his intention, to send a Scots expedition, headed
either by himself or by his nephew, then propounding the
matter to the Pope. To this it was answered, that such
an expedition would not be seemly while his uncle con-
tinued at enmity with the King of England and unrecon-
ciled to Holy Church, and his Holiness could do nothing
to further it Here the matter seems to have come to the
desired point. Randolph explained that there was no man
more devoted and dutiful to Holy Church than his unde.
He was desirous to do whatever was required of him to
show his duty and obedience, if he knew how. But, un-
fortimately, he had hitherto been prevented by technical
mistakes from knowing the pleasure of the Holy Father
regarding him. Once knowing it, Randolph gave assur-
ance that he would be found a thoroughly dutiful son.
And to make it known to him there was a simple method
— address future exhortatory letters to him by the title of
King. The Pope admitted that he consented to this;
and it was to explain, and indeed virtually to apologise
for, such consent that he wrote so fully to King Edward.
The missive ends with some mumbling arguments, to
show that no harm could really be done to King Edward.
Edward, however, remonstrated angrily against this easy
way of treating a vital question. On the whole, the im-
pression left by the Pope's account is, that the rough Scots
soldier had overreached him in diplomatic subtlety,^

The next event of moment bearing on the position and
external relations of Scotkind is the conclusion of a treaty
with France. It was negotiated by Randolph, with the
assistance of the Earl Marshal and three churchmen..

^ Fcedera (Record edition), ii. 541: "Bulla Papae de colloquxo
inter ipsura et comitem de Murref et super titulo * Regis' in Uteris ad
Robertum de Brus scribendis." If this bull be entered of its proper
date, it is difficult to understand how it should not have come up in
the course of the dialo^^e that a peace with England had then been.
establisiied upwards of half a year. For Edward's remonstrance, set
Foedera, ii. 549.

INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1327. 297

The state of the succession to the crown in France gave
ground for apprehension, should there be an ambitious
king of England of the Plantagenist race, and the great
object of the Treaty of Cerbeil, as it was called, was to
make common cause against England. Certain stipula-
tions are mutual. Any peace between France and Eng-
land ceases if there is war between England and Scotland,
and so of any peace between England and Scotland
should there be war between France and England. But
besides these negative conditions, as they may be called,
there was one positive condition laid on the Scots side
alone — ^whenever England and France are at war, then
is the King of Scotland to invade England with all his
might.^

In 1327 came that tragic revolution in England which
placed the boy Edward III. on the throne. It was the
custom then for new monarchs to renew the obligations of
their predecessors ; and a renewal of the truce was offered
in the name of Edward 1 1 1., but it was in the old oflfen-
sive shape — in favour of Robert Bruce and his adherents.
At the same time authority was given in the same terms to
treat for a final peace. The English records show several
documents, after the signing of the truce, to the same
effect. It is difficult to see how, having obtained a truce
or peace for thirteen years, England should be so desirous
to obtain a final and lasting peace, and yet should ask for
it in terms which she knew would preclude the Scots from
treating.^ The whole affair suggests a suspicion that the
object ^\'as to obliterate or neutralise the effett of any
document in which Bruce stood on record as King of
Scots. Other things tended with this to irritate the Scots.

^ Memoirs of the Ancient Alliance between France and England,
Reprint, 1820. It is perhaps to be regretted that we have no better
authority than this collection for the express terms of the treaty, but
they are in conformity with the general tenor of French treaties, and
with the stipulation in the Treaty of Northampton, which, in binding
the Scots to peace with England, exempts them from the obligation
when the terms of the alliance with France require them to be at war.
A copy of the treaty is referred to in Robertson's Index to the Char*
tors, I). 106.

• Pcedera (Record edition), ii. ^61, 576, 577.

ZgS ROBERT BRUCE.

The English Goveroment continued to pester the Papal
Court to resume the denunciatory writs against Scotland.
In 1324, Edward Baliol, the son of him who had held the
title of King in Scotland, was brought over to England
with much solemnity as an illustrious person.^ After*
events revealed a deep motive in this. The Scots, in
short, were determined to bring tlie truce to a practical
stop by one of their old inroads. Vast preparations were
made on the other side, and we are told, besides the
feudal levy, of the splendidly - mounted knights from
Hainault, Flanders, and other states, as far as Bohemia,
who flocked to reap knightly renown under the banner of
the King of England.*

The " good King Robert," as his people were in use to
call him, was now justified by age and infirmity in declin-
ing military duty, but the expedition was committed to the
thoroughly competent hands of Douglas and Randolph.
As it was to be a flying expedition to scour the country,
the men were mounted. Their horses were utterly unlike
the heavy war-steeds of the French or English cavalry.
They were not for battle, but to brin^ the fighting men to
their ground, and were of a small wiry breed, easily fed,
and capable of bearing great fatigue. This expedition
had the fortune to interest the great master of narrative
and description — Froissart. He took a keen delight in
mastering all the specialties and practical details con-
nected with remarkable instances of chivalry or daring.
Thus the marvels of the Scots expedition excited his
curiosity ;' and though he was not bom until a few years
after it, everything he says is so true to the nature of the
country and of the people concerned, that there is little
doubt of his having got his information by closely ques-
tioning eyewitnesses of the affair. He at once brings on
the stage the Scots troops with vivid distinctness m all
the peculiarities in which they differed from the heavy
chivalry of the day. No train of baggage-waggons fol-
lowed them ; they rode lightly, with no other camp-fur-
nishings but the thin iron plate on which they baked their

^ Fcedera (Rec. ed.)» ii. 558, 567. ' Froissart, chap. av.

INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1327. 299

oatmeal banuock, as the Scots of the north do still. Their
food they picked up as they went — sometimes more than
they needed ; but when it was scant, their hardy training
kept them still fit for duty; and so they swept the countr}%
plundering and burning.^ Froissart makes up the numbei
of this army to twenty-four thousand. His enumeration
of the English force mounts to sixty-two thousand. *' It
was said that there were eight thousand men-at-arms,
knights and esquires, and thirty thousand men armed and
equipped, half of whom were mounted on small hackneys;
the other half were countrymen on foot, sent by the towns
and paid by them. There were also twenty-four thousand
archers on foot, beside all the crew of followers of the
army." So they marched onwards from York, where they
mustered — a noble army, fit for great achievements, could
they have but found an enemy to fight with. As they
went, the distant flames and smoke from burnt homesteads
and villages showed them the track of the enemy, but to
come face to face with them was impracticable. But they

* **They bring no carnages with them, on account of the moun-
tains they have to pass in Northumberland ; neither do they carry
with them an^ provisions of bread or wine ; for their habits of sobriety
are such, in time of war, that they will live for a long time on flesh
half sodden, without bread, and drink the river-water without wine.
They have, therefore, no occasion for pots or pan?, for they dress the
flesh of their cattle in the skins, after they have taken them off : and
l)eing sure to And plenty of them in the countnr which they invade,
they^ carry none with them. Under the flaps of his saddle each man
carries a broad plate of metal ; behind the saddle, a little bag of oat-
meal : when they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh, and their
stomach appears weak and empty, they place this plate over the Are,
mix with water their oatmeal, and when the plate is heated, they put
a little of the paste upon it, and make a thin cake, like a cracknel or
biscuit, which they eat to warm their stomachs : it is therefore no
wonder that they perform a longer day*s march than other soldiers.
In this manner the Scots entered England, destroying and burning
everything as they passed. They seiz^ more cattle tnan thev knew
what to do with. Their army consisted of 4000 men-at-armi, knights
and esquires, well mounted ; besides, 20,000 men, bold and hardv,
armed after the manner of their country, and mounted upon little
hackneys that are never tied up or dressed, but turned. Immediately
^ter the day's march, to pasture on the heath or in the fields.*'—
Froissart*! Chronicles of England, France, &c., i. 18.

300 ROBERT BRUCE.

soon lost sight even of such distant traces of their nimble
enemy, as they moved in heavy marching order, with all
the camp apparel. It was resolved, therefore, to adopt,
as far as possible, the device of the enemy, and follow
them unencumbered. It was in an evil moment that this
plan was formed. It was taken for granted that the Scots
must repass a ford of the Tyne by which they had passed
southwards, so the English army crossed that ford, and
formed on the northern side, to attack the Scots as they
recrossed. It was not then their intention, however, to
cross ; in fact, they were away southward at their work
of pillage. For a whole week did the English army wait
at that ford, and the miseries they suffered — a large army
in their own country — are such as one only hears of in
accounts of poor fugitives in a strange land, surrounded
by enemies. They seem to have had difficulty in finding
out where they were, until they learned that they were
about half-way between Carlisle and Newcastle, with no
nearer place whence they could draw supplies. For the
first three days they could get little or no food ; during
the other four they drew a scanty supply by distant forag-
ing. Then it rained day after day, as it is apt to do in
that region, and, uncovered as they were, everything about
them was soaked, and the very leather of their accoutre-
ments rotted. This inaction and suflfering became intoler-
able, and the army crossed back over the river, and re-
sumed a march as vague and purposeless as its watching
had been. A proclamation was issued in the king's name,
offering knighthood and an estate of a hundred a-year to
him who could tell where the Scots army was. After four
more weary days* march a horseman came galloping to
the camp to claim the reward. He had found the Scots,
and had been taken prisoner by them. When he told
them of the reward, they sent him off to gain it, saying
they had been waiting a week for the English army, and
were as impatient to receive them as they could be to
attack — and now they were but three leagues off. The
joy attending this information was somewhat damped
when the army came up to the enemy, "^fhese were
posted on a ridge of strong rocky ground, with a rapid

INVASION OF ENGI^AND, 1327. 30I

Stream — the Wear — in front. It was hopeless to assail
them.

The English now tried a plan peculiar to the fashion-
able notions of the period. They put it to the chivalrous
feeling of the Scots, whether they would abandon their
advantages and have a fair stand-up fight. Either the
English would move backwards, and give the Scots an
opportunity of coming over to their side ; or, if the Scots
would courteously give them an opportunity, the English
would go over to their side and fight them* Such con-
cessions were not uncommon, and were much admired as
a high development of the spirit of chivalry. But the
Scots had too serious a stake in hand to sell it for such
empty distinctions. They gave a rather scornful refusal
to either alternative. There they were, who had invaded
the dominions of the King of England, plundering and
destroying at their will ; and if they had in this offended
him, let him come and punish them.

The English were still half-starved, while the Scots,
who could better have stood such a fate, were well stocked
with English-fed beef and mutton. They seem to have
tried to aggravate the contrast by extravagant pretences at
roistering joviality, and indulged, as the foreign historian
says, in ^* such a blasting and noise with their horns, that
it seemed as if all the great devils from hell had come
there.** The English plan was now a blockade to starve
them out. On the morning of the fourth day after their
arrival the English could scarcely credit their eyes when
they beheld the crowded rock of yesterday untenanted.
The Scots had moved off to other ground of the same
kind, which suited them better, as it gave them communi-
cations in the rear through marshy ground, which they
could easily defend.

The blockade recommenced, but the English army was
not allowed to be entirely inactive. On the first night a
cry arose in camp that the Black Douglas was upon them,
lie had swept round from a distance with some two hun-
dred followers, on a small episodical raid, not without
some hope, it was thought, of kidnapping the young king ;
but he had to retreat without that prize, after doing a

302 ROBERT BRUCE.

good deal of mischief.^ The English waited on eighteen
days, expecting that famine would come to the Scots, and
compel them either to submit or fight On the last day
there was reason to suppose that they were driven to the
second alternative, and the expectation was matter of
much serious consideration, weakened as the English
army now was. From such anxiety they were relieved
next morning by finding that their enemy had again dis-
appeared. They were many miles oflf on their way home
before they were missed The English could hardly be-
lieve in this second evasion, until some of them cautiously
crept into the camp, where they found evidence that their
enemy had been as yet far from starvation.^ There was
nothing for it now but to let the remains of that brilliant
army be dispersed. It was a sorry first experience in
warfare to the heroic Edward III., and must have sadly
humiliated England in the estimation of the foreign levies,
were it not that these had their own share in the almost
inconceivable mismanagement of the campaign.

When the expedition returned to Scotland there was
immediate preparation for another against the eastern
counties; and it was begun by the siege of Norham.
England was suffering from debt and internal difficulties ;
and if such invasions were repeated, there was every
chance of Scotland annexing the old debated land. It

^ Hemingford, 268.

* *' Some of the English, however, mounted their horses, passed
the river, and went to the mountain which the Scots had quitted, and
found more than 500 large cattle, which the enemy had killed, as they
were too heavy to carry with them, and too slow to follow them, and
they wished not to let them fall into the hands of the English alive.
They found there also more than joo caldrons, made of leather witli
the hair on the outside, which were hung on the fires full of water and
meat, ready for boiling. There were also upwards of 1000 spits with
meat on them, prepared for roasting ; and more than 10,000 pairs oi
old worn-out shoes, made of undressed leather, which the Scots had
left there. Tliere were found five poor English prisoners, whom the
Scots had bound naked to the trees, and some of them had their legs
broken ; thej untied them, and sent them awa^, and then returned
to the armv just as they were settini^ out on tlieir march to England,
by orders from the king and council. " — Froissart*s Chronicles of Eng«
land, France, &c., i. 24.

TREATY OF NORTHAMPTON, 1328. 303

was time at last to treat on such terms as the Scots would
listen to. A truce was adjusted in the mean time. Next,
at a Parliament held at York in January 1328, a docu-
ment was prepared and issued in the king's name, acknow-
ledging the independent sovereignty of Scotland. It is
discursive in solemnities, as such documents were in use
to be, but in the essentials it is quite clear. The King
of England declares for himself and his heirs, that the
kingdom of Scotland shalf remain forever to the great
prince, Lord Robert, by the grace of God illustrious King
of Scotland, and to his heirs and successors; and that
Scotland, by its old marches in the days of King Alex-
ander, shall be separated from the kingdom of England,
and free of all claim of subjection or vassalage, while all
writings or obligations inconsistent with this independence
are to be cancelled.^

It was but putting the transaction into proper diplo-
matic shape, that all objection to the independent position
of one party should be abandoned by the other, in order
that they might treat on terms of equality. The treaty
which followed on this resolution by Parliament was con-
cluded at Edinburgh on the 17th of March. It was
ratified by the Parliament of England at Northampton in
April, and hence is called the Treaty of Northampton.

The treaty makes provision for a royal alliance, to be
afterwards mentioned — this occupies, by court etiquette,
the prominent place in the record of the treaty. Next
comes a promise that the two kings shall be faithful allies
to each other, and live in peace and harmony, with reser-
vation of the obligations of the King of Scots to his ally
the King of France; but if, in the keeping of these obliga
lions, the King of Scots find it necessary to make war in
England, then the King of England may make war in Scot-
land — ^a stipulation which seems to be very reasonable.

^ The copy of this important state paper which has been chiefly
relied on, is that preserved in the Scotichronicon, xiii. 12. There
is a copy of it, as reported to a meeting of the Scots Estates held at
Edinburgh on lytii March, in the first volume of the Scots Acts, p.
126.

504 ROBERT BRUCE.

All documents in the possession of the King of England
containing stipulations inconsistent with the independence
of Scotland are declared void, and are to be given up to
the King of Scots wherever they may be found ; but if the
condition by which the King of England consents to annul
them becomes void, then they are to be returned. This
Oild stipulation is explained by other stipulations. Scot-
land agrees to pay to England, by three instalments, the
sum of twenty thousand pounds sterling, apparently as
damages for the mischief done in the recent raids across
the border ; and if there is failure in the punctual pay-
ment of this money, the stipulation for cancelling the
documents prejudicial to the independence of Scotland
becomes void. There is another stipulation which reveals
something of the position of both kingdoms as to the alien
and outlying provinces. If the Irish rebel, the King of
Scotland is not to help them ; and so of the inhabitants
of the Scots islands, the King of England is not to aid
them in war against the King of Scotland. The King of
England agrees to use his good services in the withdrawal
of all proceedings at the Court of Rome prejudicial to
King Robert or his dominions.

There is no doubt that this treaty was eminently favoui
able to Scotland. It was felt as a provoking check on the
opportunities which, as we shall see, afterwards opened
for the resumption by England of the policy of conquest.
It is treated by some of the early annalists as one of the
acts of treason to the country committed by those who
had the command of England at that time. Others, again,
deny that it was ever accepted by England. The denial
has been repeated in later times ; and it is curious to find
that while so many diplomatic papers, comparatively of
trifling moment, have been preserved to us among the
records of England, this treaty has been dropped out of
them. We have it only from the duplicate preserved in
Scotland, which is, however, authenticated by the repre-
sentatives of England.^

^ Scots Acts, i. 124. An abstract and account of the document is
g;iven in Robertson's Index to the Charters^ p. loi. It is there stated

TREATY OF NORTHAMPTON, 1328. 305

'' We are told that, either under separate stipulations, or
in accordance with the spirit of the Treaty of. Northamp-
ton, the Black Rood was restored to Scotland ; and. that
it was intended to restore the Stone of Destiny, but
the citizens of London would not permit it to be re-
moved.^ Probably they were less affected by hatred to
Scotland than by a reverence . for the sacred character of
the relic.

• While the contest with England was drawing to this con-
clusion, Scotland was not entirely without domestic his-
tory. A Parliament held in 131 8 passed so many laws
relating to special matters of order and good government,
.'that an account of them would be as littie emphatic or
•palatable to the reader as an abridgment of the proceed-
ings of a modem session of Parliament. It may be men-
tioned as showing the progress then made in notions of
internal organisation, that an Act was passed professing to
accomplish an object which at the present day statute
after statute seems to essay in vain — the treatment of that
valuable fish, the salmon, in such manner that it may be
consumed so far as, and no farther than, may be con-
sistent with the due preservation of the breed. Another
statute seems more to the purpose of its. day : it is for the
arming of the people, and requires that each man with ten

that it has '*the seals of the three lay plenipotentiaries still pretty
entire — those of Percy and Scrope especially." No historical position

• could be more preposterous than the denial, which some have thought
it proper to make for the honour of England, that this treaty was ever

. accepted. Although it was not to be found in the old editions of the

' Foedera, it is repe&tedjy referred to in documents there, and especially
in some which convey pretty hard dunning for payment of instalments
of the 20,000 pounds stipulated as damages for the sufferings of Eng-
land. The penalty. for failure to pay was, that Scotland was to be

, left unreleased from the heavy ecclesiastical writs out against he;r king
and people at the Papal Court, and the reference to this alternative
imparts. to the demand for payment a curious mixture of the seculiir
and the spiritual. These applications, instead of being addressed, like
the documents before the treaty, to a private person, are "Magnffico
domino David Regi Scotorum illustro,*' and proceed "magnificen-

.< tiam vestram requirimus et rogamus quatenus denarios illos," &c
The treaty is in the Record edition of the Foedera, ii. 730.
* Chron. I^nercost, 261.
VOL. II. U

306 ROBERT BRUCE.

pounds shall in time of war have an acton or doublet of
proo( with a basnet or iron head-piece, gloves of plate,
and a spear or sword. Instead of an acton and basnet
he might have a habeigeon or jacket, with a hood for the
head| plated with iron scales.^

The great barons who held estates both in England and
Scotland had by this time, either of choice or necessity,
to attach themselves to the one country or to the other.
The tendency of European politics at the time was to
extinguish that sort of free citizenship in several states
which had arisen with feudality and chivalry, and to re-
quire undivided allegiance from all the inhabitants of a
state. Those who had cast their lot with England could
not, of course, be permitted to retain their domains in
Scotland. We do not find, however, among extant docu-
ments, such acts either of general or particular forfeiture
as we might expect. Perhaps no such measure was ne-
cessary, and a short and very unnoticeable Act of the Par-
liament of 1 318 may have accomplished the object in a
shape less offensive. That Act, pleading the necessities
of a country which has to defend itself by war, prohibits
the removal of any commodities or money from the king-
dom of Scotland. Those who lived in England could thus
draw nothing from their estates.^ It is easy to believe
that there might be a deep policy in this. Men whose
estates are solemnly forfeited are driven into a hostile
position, perhaps prematurely. If no more was done
against the exiles than the short Act expresses, then their
position as Scots subjects was not changed; they were
welcome to all its privileges, but to obtain them they must
return to Scotland, and, living under the laws of the coun-
try, fight against its enemies.

^ Of the English troops of the same period Grose says (Military
Antiquities, i. 125), "Most of these in tne earlier periods were de
fensively armed with a kind of iron skull-cap nameu a badnet, from
its similarity to a basin, and a coarse leathern or linen doublet stuffed
with cotton or wool, called an ackton or hoqueton, and sometimes a
jack."

' " Na kyrkman of quhat sum evir condicioun or stat he Tie the
vfhylk ony th3mg hes within the kvnrick, na zit ony lawyt man the
quhilkb hes rentis or possessiounis sal presome to leid or to send
gudis or rentis utouth the kynrick."-- Scots Acu, i. 113.

HIS END, 1329. 307

Another Parliament was held at Cambuskenneth in July
1326. It is remarkable as being the earliest in which the
representatives of the burghal corporations are minuted
as having assisted. A great tax was levied by that Par-
liament, and as the burgesses would have to pay their
portion, so their representatives consented to it It was
for tlie purpose of meeting the cost of the war, and
amounted to the tenth penny of all rents or profits from
land. The amount was to be assessed according to the
extent or valuation of Alexander III.'s time, with an ex-
emption to lands desolated by the war. The tax was
limited to the lifetime of the king. There were provisions
for its being equally collected and passed into the ex-
chequer, so that if any persons were favoured by remission
of their share the grant itself should be null. The Parlia-
ment spoke of the intolerable weight of tlie feudal exac-
tions, especially when they were stretched ; and in consi-
deration of their liberal grant, especially limited the powei
of the prerogative to the fair exaction of the established
feudal dues.

It is among the events of King Robert's reign, that in
the year 1320 a conspiracy against him was discovered,
and those concerned in it punished. It leaves no more
impression on the history of the period than mere names,
yet it had a far-oflf source. The hero of it — the person
who was to supersede the king — ^was a De Soulis, a de-
scendant of that Nicholas de Soulis, the competitor for
the crown, whose ancestor, Allan the Durward, had at-
tempted, as we have seen, to get liis wife legitimated as a
daughter of William the Lion. Could he have effected
this, her descendants would have been unquestionably the
nearest heirs to the crown.

In March 1324 a son was born to King Robert by his
second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Aymer de Burgh, Earl
of Ulster. This event superseded the arrangements for
the succession to the throne. By the Treaty of Northamj)-
ton it was provided that this infant should marry Joanna,
the daughter of Edward 11. of England, and there were
complicated arrangements for another matrimonial alliance
calculated to keep the peace between the two countries if
this should fail.

308 ROBERT BRUCE.

The good King Robert was visibly approacliing the'end
of his days on earth, and none can follow him to their
conclusion without a feeling of satisfaction, that in the
infirmities from which he could not recover he had the
proud satisfaction of possessing that Treaty of Northamp-
ton — the certificate that he had recovered for his Scots
people their conquered kingdom. He died at Cardross,
near Dumbarton, on the 7th of June, in the year 1329.

A reign such as that of the good King Robert could
not fail to leave a strong and enduring impression on the
hearts of a manly and kindly people. What he had of
adversity, endurance, and struggle in his early days, told
for their emancipation as well as the triumphs of his later.
Down to the last moment of all, the tenor of his reign was
success after success, and aftenvards it became all the
more illustrious by contrast with the evil days that fol-
lowed* For some little time after his death his name was
still recalled to his faithful countrymen by stories of chi-
valry and romance occurring far away, yet closely asso-
ciated with the memory and influence of their beloved
champion. We know that, following up the dying injunc-
tions of the hero, his heart was taken lo Spain by xht
good Lord James of Douglas. The chroniclers further
tell us how he joined Alphonso, King of Leon and
Castile, then at war with the Moorish chief Osmyn of
Granada; how, in a keen contest with the Moslems,
Douglas flung before him the casket containing the pre-
cious relic, crying out, " Onward as thou wert wont, thou
noble heart I — Douglas will follow thee'" how Douglas
was slain, but how his body was recovered, and also the
precious casket : and how in the end Douglas was laid
with his ancestors, and the heart of Bruce deposited in the
church of Melrose Abbey. ^

^ A bull of the year 1330 gives Papal absolution for the extraction
of the heart from the body, and its removal by Douglas in terms of
his master's injunction. I'he story of the chronicles is that he was
on his way to Palestine, but the bull shows that his original mission
was to Spain, that the heart might be borne **in bello contra Sara*
cenos.'' — Tlieioer Vetera Monumenta, 251.

309

CHAPTER XXV.

NARRATIVE TO THE ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE

OF STEWART.

ACCESSION OP DAVID BRUCE— EDWARD BALIOL AND HIS CLAIMS—
THEIR HARMONY WITH THOSE OP THE DISINHERITED N0RMA1<^
BARONS— EDWARD BALIOL'S INVASION— BATTLE OP DUPLIN— ENG-
LISH INVASION— SIBGB OK BERWICK— BATTLE OP HALIDON HILL—

.EDWARD BALIOL GIVES HOMAGE FOR SCOTLAND— IIIS SUCCESSRS
AND REVERSES— PECULIAR METHOD IN WHICH EDWARD IIL*S AID

• WAS REMUNERATED BV TERRITORY IN SCOTLAND — ENGLISH INVA-
SION—CONNECTION OP SCOTLAND WITH FRANCE — THE FIELD OP
ENTERPRISE THERE OPENED TO EDWARD III. — CONSEQUENT RELIEF
TO SCOTLAND — GRADUAL EXPULSION OP THE ENGLISH — SIR AN-

: DREW MORAY'S REGENCY— BATI'LE OF COLRLEBN— DEPARTURE OP
BALIOL — DEMORALISING INFLUENCE OF THIS CONTEST- PORTION OK
SOUTHERN SCOTLAND RETAINED BY ENGLAND — THE BATTLE OK
NEVILLE'S CROSS— ITS INFLUENCE — CAPTURE OP KING DAVID —
POLITICAL EFFECTS OF HIS CAPTIVITY — IMS RANSOM, AND THE
SACRIFICES FOR IT— AN ENGLISH INVASION— DESECRATION OF THE
RELIGIOUS HOUSES— KING DAVID IN SCOTLAND— HIS UNSATISFAC-
TORY CONDUCT AS A KING OF SCOTS— SKCRET ARRANGEMENTS—
— PARLIAMENT AND ITS PROCEEDINGS.

David, the son of the good King Robert, was in Scotland
the accepted and undisputed successor to his throne : he
was a boy five years old. His coronation at Scone was
attended by ceremonies giving it peculiar lustre. We learn
that the religious mystery of the anointing of the king was
performed on the occasion by the Bishop of St Andrews,
under a special bull from the Court of Rome.*

It was the first instance in Scotland of anointing—

^ Sootichron., xiii. 21.

3 10 DAVID II.

the first at least since the country became a faithful chlM
of the Church of Rome ; and in the eye of that Churcli
it conferred on the monarch's title a sacredness which no
right of succession or civil ceremony could impart In
the pleadings before Edward L, when he sat as lord su-
perior, it was frequently thrown out against Scotland's
claim of independent sovereignty that her kings had not
been anointed ; and of course Robert the Bruce, at war
as he was with the ecclesiastical powers, had no chance
of being so consecrated, though it was through the influ-
ence established by his reign that the country obtained its
high position at the Court of Rome, and the undertak-
ing that the King of Scots was to become an anointed
monarch.*

Under the Act for the settlement of the crown, the
trusty Randolph became Regent. He died in July 1332,
just as the new troubles of the kingdom were beginning,
and he left behind him a traditional reputation for even-
handed justice and wonderful sagacity. He was succeeded
by another nephew of King Robert — the son of Christian
his sister — Donald, Earl of Mar, a man whose career did
not prove him capable of meeting the difiiculties he had
to deal with.

It soon became clear that it was not for nothing that the
Court of England had brought over Edward Baliol from
France and cherished him as an illustrious guest He
carried with him something of the lustre of fallen greatness.
It was now more than thirty years since as a boy he was
the avowed heir of the crown of Scotland, and was deemed
through this prospect a fitting match for a daughter of
France. The principle of hereditary succession had been
scrupulously acknowledged in the coronation of King
Robert's son, though the critical condition of the country

* The Papal writ conferring this privilege has lately been discovered
and printed. It concedes to King Robert and his successors, " in-
unctio et coronatio, Sec, manu sacra pontificis/' — Theiner Vetera
Monumenta, 244. We have seen that King Aidan was anointed by
St Columba, and enthroned with other mysteries of high sanctity
:chap. ix.) But as we are told the story, that was done under a highef
sanction than Rome could impart

THE DISINHERITED BARONS, 1329-32. 311

called for able leadership ; and King Robert had left two
nephews of mature years — one of them, Randolph, a war-
rior tried and true, and, now that his uncle and the good
Lord James were gone, the most popular man in Scotland
Yet this very punctiliousness of the hereditary principle*
if carried out, would exclude the whole family of Bruce
and carry the crown to this £d«vard Baliol, residing as a
cherished guest at the Court of England.

Further, as the natural result of events in Scotland*
there was a body of men whose title to domains there was
precisely of the same character as Edward Baliol's title to
the crown : these were the barons who, having estates in
both countries, had taken part with England. Although
no acts of forfeiture may have been issued against them,
yet, as we have seen, they virtually lost their estates, and
the loss was rendered emphatic in some instances by their
seeing others put in possession of what their ancestors
had owned. Here were well-fitted elements of a common
cause between an aspirant to a throne and his su^)-
porters.

It is instructive to glance at the genealogical position
and territorial claims of these supporters so far as they are
revealed. In the English records of the period there are
several remonstrances, importing that Scotland had failed
to observe certain stipulations made on occasion of the
Treaty of Northampton for the restoration to English sub-
jects of the estates held by them in Scotland. Among
these the Percies of Northumberland made a claim, which
was satisfied for the time, although their domains in Scot-
land must have been lost at an early period in the ensu-
ing wars.^ At the same time we find James of Douglas
restored to the estates in England that seem to have come
to his house by marriage. The connection of these names
with land questions in both countries at such a juncture,
may give us a lively and practical notion of the arbitrary
way in which the war adjusted nationalities among those
great houses whose parents held territories in both coun-
tries and frequented both courts, though that of England

> Hailcsi ii. 229, and passage there cited from Dugdale't Baronage,

312 DAVID 11.

had the predominant attraction. The Percies became die
hereditary guardians of the north and the scoui^e of Scot-
land Their services in the defence of the English fron-
tier raised them, as nearly as the English constitution would
admit, into such a secondary sovereignty as the Margra-
vates of the Empire, which arose out of the influence ac-
quired by those who could protect the frontiers from in-
vasion. The power of the Douglases arose in a similar
manner in Scotland Yet probably a little difference in
the distribution of their estates — more to the Percies in
Scotland or to the Douglases in England — might have
inverted their position, and made the Percies national to
Scotland, the Douglases to England. Another of the dis-
possessed lords spoken for in the English remonstrances
was Henry de Beaumont He claimed the lordship of
Buchan, the same tlut Bruce harried after the battle of
Inverury. It then belonged, as we ha?ve seen, to a branch
of the Comyns, lords of Buchan and constables of Scot-
land ; but the great English Baron Bellmont or Beaumont
claimed the territory as husband of the heiress of thc(
Comyns. Thomas, Lord Wake, is another name in the
English remonstrances ; he claimed the lordship of Liddei,^
or Liddesdale. It seems not to have been denied, on the
part of Scotland, that these claims were supported by
treaty stipulations ; yet for some reasons, whether justified
or not by events, the claimants were not put in possession
of the estates demanded by them.

The Earl of Athole was one of the largest claimants
among the disinherited, and the history of his house
through three generations is a fair example of the fluc-
tuations and changes in nationality among his class ;
for although he had a title thoroughly Scots, as Earl of
Athole, he was a Norman Baron with great estates in the
south of England. The house goes back, though not with
21 very distinct genealo^, to Donald Bane, and was one
6f the few of native origin which obtained an early earU
dom. In the middle of the thirteenth century, the. Lady
Femelith was Countess of Athole in her own right. She
was married to David de Hastings, who traced relation-
ship to the royal family of England. Thjeir daughter,

THE DISINHERITED BARONS, 1329-32. 3I3

heiress of the two houses, married John of Strathbogic, of
the house of Macduff, so that the male head of the house
of Athole was again of native name and race. The next
heir, David^ married an English heiress, who brought him
Childham Castle, and other great possessions in Kent.
Taking, on the one hand, the vast mountain territories of
Athole and Stratlibogie, on the other side the fertile do-
mains of the house in the south of England, one might
imagine, from the conduct of their holder, that the two
sets of interests were very nearly balanced, and apt to pre-'
dominate in turn. The son of the lady who brought the
Kentish estates to the family is that same John, Earl of
Athole, who joined in Bruce's dash for the crown, and was
executed at London in 1306. His son David took service
with Bruce, and became his Lord High Constable. For
some reason, however, whether connected with the restora-
tion of the English estates or not, he is found disappearing
from Scotland a year or tti'o before the battle of Bannock-
biim and taking service with King Edward.

We have yet, even in this one family, to find other estates,
both in Scotland and in England, coming to weigh against
each other. Here it is necessary to go back to Comyn,
Lord of Badenoch, slain by Bruce and Kilpatrick in Dum-
fries. This Comyn was married to Joan de Valence, who,
with her sister, was coheiress of Aymer de Valence, Earl
of Pembroke, King Edward's governor of Scotland at the
time when Bruce started for the crown. Comyn had a
son, who died about the year 1325, leaving his two sisters
as his heirs. That Earl of Athole who had passed from
the service of Scotland into that of England married one
of these coheiresses. Thus his son David, at the time we
have reached, was heir not only of the Athole and Mac-
duflf countries in Scotland, and of the Hasting and Child-
ham domains in England, but also represented a coheiress's'
^hare in Badenoch and the other possessions of the Comyns
in Scotland, and a similar share in the inheritance of one
whose name stands in history in so inimical a position to
Scotland as the Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke,
who, as English governor of Scotland, had to do battle
with Bruce. These estates seem to have been among thg

314 DAVID II.

most extensive belonging to any English subject, and to
have given the Earl of Athole claims in the counties of
Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, Lincoln, and Northum-
berland. On the other hand, the fragments of our records
of Scots land-rights reveal to us gifts of the Athole estates
to partisans of £ruce — ^the great bulk of them apparently
going to the family of Campbell of I^^ochawe, the husband
of his sister Mary.

Disposals of the Comyn estates also turn up in the
records, showing that, besides the great Highland lord-
ship of Badenoch, there were at the crown's disposal
fragments of property belonging to that house in Teviot-
dale, Clydesdale, Dumbarton, and the Lowlands of Perth-
shire.^

This sketch of family history may serve as a specimen
of the interests which caused oscillations in alliance
sadly calamitous to Scotland. There were many other
barons attached to the English Court who had claims of a
like kind on Scotland. For instance, Talbot of Goderich
Castle, in Hertfordshire, represented the sister of Athole's
mother, the coheiress of the estates of the Comyns of
Badenoch. The family of De Quincy, Earl of Winchester,
had estates in the south of Scotland — one of them, Tranent
in East Lothian — and we find English Mortimers and De
la Zouches putting in claims which are traced to an heir-
ess of the De Quincys. In the middle of the thirteenth
century there was a Matilda, the heiress of the earldom
of Angus, held seemingly by a native family ; she was the
daughter of Malcolm, who was the son of Duncan, and the
grandson of Gilchrist This lady married Gilbert d'Um-
fraville, Lord of Redesdale, Prudhoe, and Herbottil, in
Northumberland, and carried her rights into his family.
It was their son who, as governor of the Castle of Dundee
at the opening of the War of Independence, objected to
resign his command to any but the Scots Estates, who had
commissioned him. The family became decidedly Eng-
lish, and King Robert disposed of their estates in Scot-

* See Wood's Peerage — Athole and Badenoch ; and Robertson*!
Index to the Charters.

EDWARD BALIOL, 1332. 3 IS

land, while the representative of the house at the time of
Bruce's death naturally wished to recover them.^

Infested by such elements of discord, it is only natural
to find Scotland affording a sort of brief rehearsal of the
Wars of the Roses. " The disinherited barons " gathered
round Edward Baliol, and, putting him in front as their
king, they resolved to try their fortunes in Scotland. The
Government of England acted so far with decorum, as to
make proclamation on the borders against attempts to
break the peace with Scotland. The barons and their
leader thus found it necessary to go by sea, and they
landed in Fifeshire in August 1332, to the number, as
it is said, of 500 mounted men and 3000 foot. They
marched onwards to Strathearn, where there was a large
army under the command of Mar, the new Regent of
Scotland. It was posted near Duplin, on a broad gradual
slope — the kind of ground which suits great armies for
manoeuvring against each other for the upper ground.
There seems here, however, to have been no generalship
oif either side. Edward Baliol was no soldier, and the
force he landed with was what we have seen. Yet he
attacked and routed a large army. The affair is one of
the mysteries of war. That Mar's army did not choose
to fight against Baliol and his supporters would be the
natural solution, but for the enormous slaughter which,
beyond doubt, befell the army which professed to fight for
King David. Edward Baliol now fortified himself in
Perth. There another large army invested him, but dis-
persed without doing, or indeed attempting to do, any-
thing that a force, either with its heart in a cause, or under
the orders of responsible officers, should have done. . On
the 24th of September 1332 he was crowned at Scone ;
and thenceforth for a while we find in the English records
mention of Edward, by the grace of God King of Scotland.

These records contain a special item, dated 23d Novem-
ber 1332. It is the certificate of an acknowledgment by

1 Wood's Peerace— Angus. See an examination of the genealogf
cal position of *'tne disinherited barons" in Hailes's Annals* ii. 177

3l6 ' DAVID It

King Edward of vassakge to the King of England for hiei
fief of Scotland. It is, like the documents connected with
Edward I.'s feudal claim, saturated with forms and techni-
calities, as if the skill of the scribe who drafted it could
make it perpetual It tells how Edward's father had been
invested with the crown of Scotland by the lord superior;
how he had committed offences wherethrough it was
justly forfeited to the superior; and how a usurper
had in the mean time come in and held the fief bv
force. As the father whom Edward represented had
forfeited his fief by his misdeeds against his superior,
his son could not succeed to the fief unless he were
accepted as a vassal by the King of England; and this
being done, the infeudation of Scotland was again as com-
plete as parchment could make it^ There is no reason to
presume that the people of Scotland knew anything about
the notarial docket of this transaction, or had any notice
that there had come a great revolution in their condition
as a nation. Nearly at the same time King David was
removed out of the way of the contest, and hospitably
received at the Court of Paris.

The events that follow cannot be grouped and dis-
tinguished like those of a war with two sides having a
question of nationality or of principle to divide them. It
was not even the simple question between dynasties ; with
this there were mixed up considerations of person, con-
nection, and property all over the country, and the quar-
relling is intermixed like the personal contests in an
excited mob. At one time we find the new king over-
mastered by numbers near Annan in Dumfriesshire, fleeing
half naked across the English border for protection.
Then there are raids across the border, and England,
which professed to let the contest in Scotland work its
own way, now finds that the Peace of Northampton has
been broken by the Scots. It was determined to punish
the aggression, and give substantial aid ta the new king^
This gives for a time distinctness to events — it is again
England and Scotland measuring swords. The usual
summonses and commissions were issued, and a great

1 «5

See the documents in Foedera, ii. 847.

BATTLE OF HALIDON HILL, 1333. 317

English army was assembled at Newcastle in the spring of
1333. Berwick was, as formerly, to be the first object.
The vast system of fortifications for which Edward I. had
given the practical hint had been sedulously carried out,
faking indeed two great strongholds — a castle and a for-
tified town, each under its own governor. Again a trial
was made by a ship attack from the estuary of the Tweedy
but it was beaten off as before. The land siege was, how-
ever, pressed by a great army, with every siege engine of
the day. The Scots meanwhile, under the guardian, tried
the old game of a formidable raid into England, threaten-
ing to carry off the Queen of England from Bamborough
Castle ; but this great Norman fortress was too strong to
be in serious danger from; a light-armed flying force, and
the English army was not to be diverted away from its
chief object. The English force was far too pOiWtrful to
be long resisted. There were treaties with the besieged,
who were accused of bad faith in still holding out; but
the end was, that on a given day the town and castle were
to be yielded if they were not succoured, and the test of
an effectual succour was to be two hundred of the Scots
army actually joining the garrison of the town.

The Scots army marched out of England, and crossed
the Tweed at a safe distance. They found the English
posted on Halidon Hill, rising westward of the town, and
now approached by rows of villas. The ground around
its lower slopes was then a marsh, which strengthened the
position. The Scots army were led by the new regent or
guardian, Douglas, and by the Steward of Scotland, yet a
youth. There were some of the old tried captains of
Bruce's wars present, but in inferior posts. Here the con-
ditions of Bannockbum were almost inverted. The Scots,
if they would fight the English, must attack them on their
own ground, ^rhe assailants on foot were struggling
through the morass, where they were exposed to the
deadly skill of that department of the English army which
was ever becoming more formidable — the bowmen. There
.was no possibility .of dispersing them with cavalry, and
the Scots army, ere it reached the English, was but an
attenuated fragment of itself, easily dealt with. Therp
was no escape from an exterminating slaughter, and the

31 8 DAVID IT.

warlike renown of England almost recovered at Halidoii
Hill what it had lost at Bannockbum.

Berwick had to yield. Though afterwards repeatedly
changing hands, the town never remained so long in the
possession of Scotland as to be more to the country thaa
a military post of the enemy held for a time and then re-
taken. Hence, from the day of Halidon Hill, Berwick
was virtually the one permanent acquisition to England
by the great war, unless we may include the Isle of Man.
This, the farthest south of the groups of islands which
held but a light and fluctuating allegiance to the crown of
Scotland, was occupied and retained by England. Allu-
sion has already been made to the trouble given for cen-
turies to English legislators and men of business by this
acquisition of Berwick, after the boundaries of England
had been long adjusted. In mere topography Berwick
held rank as a respectable market-town with a small
foreign trade. But owing to its eventful career, the place
was long burdened with an official staff, which, in its
nomenclature at least, was pompous as that of a sovereign
state. The English Government, after Scotland was lost,
retained the of^cial staff which Edward I. had designed
for the administration of the country. It was huddled
together within Berwick as a centre, and was in readiness
to expand over such districts of southern Scotland as Eng-
land acquired from time to time — was ready to spread
over the whole country when the proper time should
come. Soon after the recapture of Berwick, as we shall
see, there was a prospect of such expansion. The active
field for this body, however, was contracted by degrees,
and at last it was confined to the town and liberties of
Berwick, which were thus honoured by the possession of
a Lord Chancellor, a Lord Chamberlain, and other high
officers ; while the district had its own Doomsday Book
and other records adapted to a sovereignty on the model
of the kingdom of England.

Soon after this victory, in the beginning of the year
'334* came transactions which appear on the English
records as the Acts of a Parliament held at Edinburgh,
but they have no place in the records of Scotland. Thert

BALIOL'S PARLIAMENT, 1334. 319

are entered as present in that Parliament seven bishops.
These are followed by four names representing the barons ;
one of them thoroughly belongs to Scotland — Patrick of
Dunbar, Lord March, the governor of the Castle of Ber-
vnck at the time of the capitulation. The other three are
thoroughly English — Athole and Bellmont, whose family
history we have seen, and Richard Talbot, taking the title
of Earl of Mar, bestowed on him no doubt by Edward
Baliol. Then it is set forth that there were present many
barons, magnates, and other persons of the kingdom of
Scotland, clerical and lay.* The proceedings, like those
before King Edward L in his court of Lord Superior, are
drawn up and attested by a notary of the Empire. The
whole is as unlike an Act of the Parliament of Scotland as
it could well be. It wants that " excellent brevity" which
Bacon found in the old Scots Acts. At every stage,
whether of preliminary, ceremonial, or of actual business,
it is protested in a profusion of words that what is done
has been deliberately weighed and considered, and has
without doubt received the assent of all and singular, the
bishops, prelates, earls, magnates, and men of Scotland
assembled on the occasion listening and giving their assent
thereto, and no one gainsaying. Through these profuse
formalities two transactions are traceable. The one is a
declaration of King Edward Baliol's homage and fealty for
Scotland to King Edward of England ; it was evidently
desirable tnat this should be on record, not merely in the
personal name of the vassal, but as a condition admitted
by a free Scots Parliament numerously attended. The
other transaction was the conferring of a testimonial or
reward on the King of England for his services in helping
the true heir of the crown of Scotland to recover his fief
The form of the reward was a rent-charge of two thousand
iibraia^ to be made good on land in Scotland.* By way

^ '*Et aliis quamplurimis baronibus, magnatibus, proceribus et
hominibus tarn dericis quam laicis dicti regiii Scotise.*'

' It has been much disputed whether this word means a sum of
money secuied on land, or a certain acreage of land pledged. See
Ducange, "Libra; Librata." The author of 'Les Termes de la
Laye,' says Librata Teme contains four oxgangs; and he says, on

320 DAVID n.

of giving effect to this obligation, the town and territoiy
of Berwick are made over to the King of England. So
much for the business professed to be accomplished by
an Act of Parliament.^

There followed presently a supplement to the transac-
tion, in which King Edward Baliol acted alone by charter,
without professing parliamentary sanction. It was the
fulfilment of the gift of two thousand librata^ of land.
Berwick alone was insufficient as a security to cover that
amount, and therefore, in addition, the King of England
was to have possession of the town, castle, and county
of Roxburgh, of the town, castle, and forest of Jed-
burgh, and in the same manner, with their towns and
castles, of the counties of the Lothians, Peebles, aiid
Dumfries. It was, in the shape of a mortgage for a debt,
a gift to England of the districts south of the Forth.*
The shape of this transaction reminds one of the English
fictions of law, now obsolete, by which entails were docked,
or questionable titles to land rectified, by common re-
coveries, or other actions by fictitious personages

Absolute sovereignty over the most accessible part of
the country — a sworn vassal ruling over the rest — ^the hold
of England upon Scotland was of a far more likely kind
than Edward I.'s notion of absolute conquest, had the
arrangement gone further than writing and sealing. The
English Government proceeded immediately to make
good its position by establishing an English .official organ-
isation in the newly-acquired territory.

For three years after this the fighting continued, and
was of the same chaotic character. There were even divi-

the authority of the Scots author Skene, in his ' De Verborum Signi-
ficatione/ that an oxgang consists of thirteen acres. What Skene
says, under the head of Bovata Temc, is, " Some land is mair fertile
and uther mair barren — alwaies ane oxengate of land suld contene
threttene acker."

* See the whole record in Foedera (Record edition), ii. 876. Be-
sides all manner of attestations and certificates, the notary particularly
Identifies the record as having the great seal in green wax appended
lo it by ribbons partly green and partly yellow.

* Foedera (Record edition), ii. 8S8,

CIVIL WAR, 1334-37- 3^1

sions among the disinherited lords themselves, owing
to disappointed expectations and unexpected directions
taken in the awarding of the territories ever changing
hands. Thus the English Beaumont goes in discontent
to his Castle of Dundarg, on a rock on the coast oi
Buchan, ^nd holds it for family reasons against Baliol's
party while it is besieged by Mowbray, who afterwards,
aggrieved by his usage in the distribution of prizes, joins
the national party in Scotiand. Throughout the whole con-
fusion of contest for personal interests, this national party
— the middle class and general population of Scotland in
fact — were the real substantial power available for fighting
purposes. If these at the beginning looked on the con-
test as turning on a mere question of succession to the
throne and to certain baronies, later events showed them
that what was at issue was the other and vital question
of national independence or subjugation to England.
Repeated aid to BalioPs cause came from England, and
Edward himself invaded Scotland as far as Aberdeen, the
people pursuing their old policy of scattering with their
belongings as he approached. But he did not pursue this
purpose with the earnestness of his grandfather, or his own
in other contests. We can see, even in the confusion of
this war in Scotland, the influence of another and grander
field of enterprise having opened on the ambitious spirit
of this young king.

There was now close intercourse between the national
party in Scotland and the Court of Paris — a name convey-
ing a more distinct impression than " the Court of France,"
since a great part of present France, then distributed into
secondary sovereignties, with no more than a feudal con-
nection with the central government, pursued a separate
policy, and in a great measure supported the English in-
vasion there. The internal politics of France have a close
connection at this period with the destinies of Scotland ;
and it may be well, for the sake of clearness, to recall the
position of the influencing forces there, however familiar
they may be to the reader.

When Louis X. died in 1328, he left daughters, but no
son. The old code called the Salic law — which is now

VOL. IL X

$22 DAVID II.

supposed to have been intended for the internal regulation
of some parts of Germany — was said to apply to the throne
of France, so that no woman could reign there, and the
daughters of King Louis were excluded. The uncle of
King Louis, the second son of his grandfather Philip III.,
was Charles of Valois. He died just before the beginning
of the century, leaving a son, Philip, who stepped into
the throne witJiout any opposition on behalf of the daugh-
ters of Louis, and thus, in the year 1328, founded the
royal house of Valois. Isabel, the sister of Louis X., was
married to Edward II. of England. In the exact rule
of hereditary succession her claim would stand behind
that of her brother's daughters, but the exclusion of female
succession applied to her if it applied to them. It was
whispered, however, that the exclusion of females was
personal only in order that the throne of a warlike people
should be filled by a male — it did not affect the right of
priority when a male claimed it. This reasoning made
Edward III. of England, the son of the late king's sister,
a degree nearer to the throne than Philip, the son of the
late king's uncle ; and the reasoning had a tendency which
inclined King Edward to give ear to it. The one thing
needful to conclude the argument logically as well as
practically was a sufficient force : with such an army as
England alone could supply, the adventure would be
imprudent. It was necessary to wait until some notable
division of forces should arise out of the complicated re-
lations between the Crown of France and the subordinate
sovereignties. This opportunity arose, and made in France
a considerable Plantagenet party, helping the English
aspirants to the throne, down to the memorable expulsion
set in motion by the Maid of Orleans.

In 1337 the diplomatic language of England no longer
acknowledges " our beloved kinsman, Philip, King of
France." He is changed into " Philip of Valois, conduct-
ing himself as King of France," just as at an earlier period
" David, by the grace of God King of Scots," becomes
** David de Bruce, commanding our enemies in Scotland. **
Even before this, the national party in Scotland had felt
this countef-current setting in to relieve them of some ot

POSITION OF FRANCE, 1328-39. 323

the weight of the English power. King Edward, indeed,
was in apprehension that France might anticipate him by
sending a force into Scotland, and giving him work at
home. At last, in tlie autumn of 1339, to the joy of the
national party in Scotland, it became known that a force
had set sail from England to invade France. Like the
death of Edward I., here again was a turning-point in the
chances for Scotland. Whether as the sole object of
ambition to two such potent spirits as Edward III. and
the Black Prince, Scotland could have held her own to
the end, may be doubtful. It is certain that the struggle,
if it lasted, must have been more critical and bloody even
than we have found it. With the most accessible and
valuable part of Scotland almost in his hands. King
Edward must have been sorely tempted ere he followed a
course that compelled him to loosen this hold — we may
believe that his grandfather would have selected the
nearer and more promising field of enterprise.

At this time, the broken-up adherents of the national
party had so far concentrated as to be under general
leadership. Their first head was Andrew Murray of Both-
well, the son of Wallace's favourite colleague. He was a
tried warrior, and had a career second only to that of his
old master, Bruce, in personal hardship and adventure.
He was chosen regent soon after the battle of Duplin.
In 1335 he gained a considerable battle at Culbleen, on
the slopes of the higher Grampians, in the west of Aber-
deenshire. The leader of his opponents was that Earl of
Athole who has been spoken of as one of the great barons
who really belonged by birth and education to England,
though they had claims in Scotland. He met in the
battle of Culbleen a heroic death; and the chronicler
Wyntoun describes how, when deserted by the flight of
his followers, he set his back to a rock, and said it should
take flight as soon as he. Murray harassed King Ed-
ward in his march northwards in the following year. In
1328 he died, and the Steward of Scotland, then twenty-
two years old, succeeded him as regent. There was
then again gradually emerging out of the recent chaos a
visible Scotland to be governed. The Steward's high

324 DAVID II.

position, if not his talent, ^ave him command ; for he had
been the parliamentary heir of the crown, and would have
worn it but for the birth of the nearer heir.

Early in the year 1339 Edward Baliol left Scotland —
a token that the national party had made such head as to
render his living there uncomfortable. He became a
hanger-on at the Court of England, where he must have
been a costly guest, if we are to judge from the many
warrants preserved among the English records for the pay-
ment of his debts and the maintenance of his establishment.
It was a further token of progress that in May 1341 King
David returned from France with his queen, Johanna of
England. He was but seventeen years old, yet the Regent
appears to have given over to him the government.

Perhaps the best measure of the very gradual restora-
tion of the country to itself is in the events connected
with the possession of the strongholds. In the year 1337
several fortresses in the north were recovered, such as
Dunnottar and Kinneff, with Falkland, in Fife. A much
more important achievement was the taking, in the same
year, of the Castle of Bothwell, on the Clyde. We can
see from the character of the fragments still remaining
that it must have been a strong fortress, then recently
built after the new system of fortification. Its capture
had a significance, from its place in the centre of one
of the most fruitful districts of the new dominions of
the King of England. On the opposite side of these
dominions, and in a district still richer, stood one great
fortress which had not yet fallen to the English — Dunbar.
It was determined that a mighty effort should be made
to take it, and siege was laid to it by a large force under
the Earl of Salisbury in 1339. The governor, the Earl of
March, was absent ; but his wife, a daughter of the favour-
ite hero Randolph, immortalised herself by the resolute
and indefatigable resistance headed by her. She is known
in history and tradition as Black Agnes of Dunbar, a nick-
name given to her, as it is said, from her swarthy com-
plexion. Helped from the sea, the fortress, under its
** she-captain/' held out so stoudy, that Salisbury, with in*
tense reluctance, withdrew his force.

RECOVERY OF NATIONALITY, 1335-46. 325

In 1339, Perth, Cupar, and all the important strengths
north of the Forth, were in Scots hands. Before the end
of the same year the English suffered a more serious loss
in Stirling, so that the Scots commanded the highway into
the dominions which had been made over to England.
Edinburgh Castle was recovered in 1341, and, scarcely of
less importance, Roxburgh in 1342.

This last achievement connects itself with some in-
cidents, which tell us all too distinctly of the mischief
which the recent nature of the war was doing to the Scots
character. Down to the death of Alexander III. there
had been a long peace, and a country consolidating and
prospering. After that came a great national war, full of
hardships and miseries, but healthy in its influence on the
national character. But now for some years the struggle
with the invader had been mixed up with a civil war, in
which Scot fought with Scot from personal or mercenary
motives. Hence began a system of internal enmity, in
which quarrels and legacies of vengeance passed from
generation to generation, becoming fruitful in events
which threw deep scandal on the national character. The
earliest of these is only too characteristic of the many that
followed. The hero of the capture of Roxburgh was Sir
Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey, or Dalhousie ; as a
reward for this service he was appointed Sheriff of Teviot-
dale. There was anotlier hero of the war, however, who
counted that the sheriffship belonged, or should belong,
to himself: this was Sir William Douglas, called the
Knight of Liddesdale. He was one of the most audacious
and successful leaders in the guerilla war of his day. He
was chivalrous, too, in his bearing, and earned the ap-
plauding title of the Flower of Chivalry. His conduct
on this occasion was a poor justification of the title.
Coming from his Castle of Hermitage, which he had taken
from the English and kept, he seized the sheriff while, as
it is said, he was transacting the business of his office, and
dragged him to Hermitage, where he thrust him into a
vault and left hrm to die of starvation.* By this act

' The author of the Scalacronica says that Ramsay's death was a

326 DAVID II.

Douglas gained what he wanted — the murdered man's
office — and became governor of Roxburgh Castle. After-
wards a prisoner in England, he became mixed up with
transactions giving grounds for inevitable suspicions that
he was ready to betray the national party to King Edward.
While he was yet a captive, David de Berkeley was mur-
dered in Aberdeen ; and it stands charged against Doug-
las in the chronicles that he hired the murderers, in
revenge for a family injury.^ He fulfilled the proverbial
fate of the bloody and deceitful man. He had in some
of his acts given deadly umbrage to his kinsman, AVilliam,
Lord Douglas, at whose baptism he had stood as sponsor,
and this godson murdered him as he was hunting in
Ettrick Forest*

King Edward's foreign war compelled him to submit
to several truces with the Scots. These were not easily
kept. It was not as of old, when crossing the border
broke the truce. The southern districts of the country
were half ruled by England, half by Scotland. The truces
required tliat the Scots should abstain from molesting, not
only the inhabitants of England, but the King of Eng-
land's subjects in Scotland. But the very possession by
the Scots of certain strongholds within the boundaries
occupied by these subjects was in itself a waging of war;
and as the national party waxed stronger they were not
content to restrain the war within their own country, but
recommenced tlie old raids across the border when Ed-
ward was with his army in France. As Shakespeare puts
it, in the words of Henry V. —

" The Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us.
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France
IWt that the Scot, in his unfurnished kingdom,
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample brim and fulness of his force,

judgment on him for taking Roxburgh on Easter Dav, " at the very
hour of the resurrection.*' — See the abstract of the lost passages in
JLeland, i. 558.
* Scotichron., xiv. 7. * Ibid., xiv. 8.

BATTLE OF NEVILLE'S CROSS, 1346. 327

Galling the gleanM land with hot essavs,
Girdiiij^ with grievous siege castles and towers,
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.'*

T appears to have been by desire of the Frencli Court,
and in pursuance of the alliance with France, that a seri-
ous invasion of England was at last projected. King Ed-
ward was busy with the siege of Calais in 1346, when. a
large Scots force assembled at Perth and marched south-
wards. They were under the command of King David,
then twenty-two years old. He had been educated in a
bad warlike school for effective service in Scots warfare.
Feats of arms which had nothing to recommend them but
their dashing character, headlong acts of audacity done in
the spirit of gambling with the most momentous interests,
had become fashionable among the chivalry of Europe,
and especially in France. It was more to the spirit of
rash adventure tlian to deficiency of prowess or courage
that France owed most of her disasters; and her ally
seemed to participate in the same spirit, to be led to like
results.

The array of the north of England was called out under
the authority of the Archbishop of York. Again the force
organised was conspicuous for the number of clergy em-
bodied in it, but this time they were in better hands than
on the fatal day of the Chapter of Mitton, for the arch-
bishop had two warlike assistants, Henry Percy and Ralph
Neville. The Scots army reached the neighbourhood of
Durham, where events showed that the organisation for
intelligence was signally imperfect. The Knight of Lid-
desdalc, on a foraging party, found himself face to face
with the English army. The party fled, much diminished
by slaughter, to the protection of their own lines- They
brought their pursuers with them, and thus the Scots army
were aware of the presence of the enemy in that very dis-
couraging shape— the reception of a scattered body of
fugitives. On the 17th of October 1346 the two armies
fought. For the second time at least the Scots suffered
.terribly from that scourge for which they were unprepared
-^thc English archers. To charge them in flank with a

328 DAVID II.

party of horse, as at Bannockbum, was the remedy. It
was suggested by one of the commanders, but the sugges-
tion was useless, as the means had not been provided, and
could not be improvised. It was a complete victory to
England ; and what crowned the calamity for Scotland,
King David was carried off a prisoner. The Steward and
the Earl of March, who were next in command, drew away
the remnant of the army. Froissart threw a romantic
interest over this English triumph, by a story that the vic-
torious troops were led by that gentle queen, Philippa, who
interceded for the burgesses of Calais ; but this has not
the confirmation which so remarkable an incident would
certainly have had from native authors.

This victory is connected with other legends and re-
miniscences, which show the importance given to it in
England. It was more than a mere victory by human
prowess ; the intervention of the Deity was clearly visible
in it. An old memorial, which relates the legends of its
day, and describes some trophies of the victory, preserved
at Durham, tells how, on the night before the battle, there
did appear to John Fossour, then prior of the Abbey of
Durham, a vision commanding him to take the holy cor-
porax cloth wherewith St Cuthbert did cover the chalice
when he used to say mass, and stick it on a spear-point as
a banner, wherewith he was to take up his stand on the
Red Hills, and there abide until the battle that was to be
should be over. The prior gave full obedience to this in-
junction, " taking the same for a revelation of God*s grace
and mercy through the mediation of holy St Cuthbert"
Standing on the Red Hills with his monks around him,
all prostrate in prayer, there came crowds of the Scots
running towards them, who pressed on them with evil
intent, but had no power to commit violence on holy per-
sons so occupied and protected. They witnessed, ere the
battle was over, " many conflicts and warlike exploits ; "
but of these they give no account, deeming them a second-
ary matter of mere detail when weighed with the prepara-
tions for securing victory made by themselves.

The loss to the Scots is described as the capture of
their king, **and with him were taken four carls, two lords,

BATTLE OF NEVIIL'S CROSS, 1346. 329

the Archbishop of St Andrews, one other bishop, one
knight, and many others." Among the slain, besides
*' many lords and Scotsmen, to the number of, one and
other, fifteen thousand," are included that mystical body,
** seven earls of Scotland."

The abbot has another loss to record, quite as great in
his eyes — infinitely greater in its gain to the patrimony of
St Cuthbert : this was the Black Rood of Scotland, so im-
portant as a national palladium that, after its removal by
Kdward I., it had been restored to Scotland by treaty. It
was kept, as we are told, in Durham Abbey, on the pillar
next St Cuthbert's shrine in the south aisle. The national
banner of Scotland, and several leaders' pennons, were a
fitting accompaniment to this prize.

The importance of this battle is shown in the solemni-
ties with which it was commemorated. The prior caused
make a goodly and sumptuous banner, with pipes or rings
of silver, and various costly decorations. The corporax
cloth was let into the centre of this banner, which was
kept in a chest in the " Ferretorie," to be carried in the
abbey on festival days, and especially to be displayed in
battle. A cross was erected on the place where the monks
assembled : a more gorgeous cross was erected on the field
of battle by Sir Ralph Neville— hence the field afterwards
obtained its name. It stood until the year 1589, when it
was destroyed, apparently by some zealous reformers.^

' '' An antient memoriall collected forth of the belt AtitimiarieN con-
cerning the battell at Durham in John Foiiour tyme,"jpr(ntc(l in the
* Antiquities of the Abt^v and Cathedral Churcli of Durluim/ and
more accurately in the ' Kites of Durliam/ by the Surteen Society.
The conclunion ihowi that the author of the memorial wa« alive at
the time of the destruction of the croii t *' witich so did there itande
And remayne moit notorious to all passingers till of laite. in the veare
of our Lord God 1589, in the nighte tyme, the same was broken doune
and defaced by some lewde and contemptuous wicl<ed persons, there-
unto encouraged as it seemed by some who loveth Christe tlie worse
for the crosse sake, as utterly and spitefully despising all auncicnt
ceremonies and monuments." The memorialist descri)>es the cross
with ** three steps aboute yt everyway, four squared to the sockeit
that the stalk or the cross did stand in, which soclcett was mavd fast
to a four squared brod stave/'— «nd su on, with n minuteness tnat \j%*
oomes tiresome*

330 DAVID II.

King David was taken to the Tower of London with
a train of captives. We find in the English writs of the
day provision made for the detention of the bulk of these
as prisoners of war waiting for ransom. These are spoken
of as Scots ; but two of high rank were reserved for pun-
ishment as traitors — the Earls of Menteith and Fife. It
was charged against them that they had sworn allegiance
to Edward, King of Scotland, holding that fief as vassal to
the King of England — a specialty repeated, as usual, at
every turn of the proceedings against them. These were
peculiar — a sort of compromise between the trial of an
English subject and the condemnation of an alien captive,
like the proceedings against Wallace. A commission was
appointed for their trial, but the sentence to be pronounced
on them was sent from Calais, as adjusted there by the
king and his council. The sentence was death in the
cruel manner of the English treason law ; on Menteith it
was executed, but Fife was spared.*

The English army crossed the border, and their success
gave temporary animation to Edward Baliol, who helped
them. He held the Castle of Caerlaverock, memorable
for its siege by Edward I. Roxburgh and Hermitage
were retaken ; and England recovered for the time a hold
on Tweeddale, Teviotdale, Ettrick Forest, Annandale, and
Galloway — fully half of the district made over to Edward
III. by Baliol.^ The Steward now again became regent;
and it says much for the constitutional spirit of the times
that it seems never to have been in his view, or that of his
supporters, that he should be made king, though many

' Foedera (Record edition), iii. 95, 108.

' Scotichron., xiv. 5. Here Bower says the English marches were
at Cockbumspath and Soutra at one end, and at Karlynlippts and
Crosscryne at the other. One of these points is easily identified with
Carlops in the Pentlands, among the scenery of the * Gentle Shep*
herd. The site of the other point is doutnful. Macpherson, in his
• Geographical Illustrations of .Scottish History,* generally a very
satisfactory book of reference, deals with this question in an extremely
equivocal wav : ** Crosscryne," he says, **i» apparently a cross on
the Cairn hills ; " and on turning to the head Cairn hills to see where
they are placed, the answer is, **v, Crossoyne." lliere is a spot
called Corse Cryne near Biggar, in Lanarkshire. — Stat. Ac, vi. 359.

\

CAPTIVITY OF KING DAVID, 1346-47. 33 1

good reasons besides his parliamentary title might have
been found for such an arrangement. After the inroad
following the battle of Neville's Cross, there comes a lull
in the aSairs of Scotland such as England would not be
expected to permit after having dealt so heavy a blow. A
truce was arranged with France, and included Scotland.
It lasted by renewals down to the year 1354.

King David was conveyed through the city of London
with great pomp and pageantry ; there was on the part of
the Government an abundant chivalrous display, and the
great corporation was invited to show its splendours on
the occasion. But afterwards the acquisition seems to
have given more embarrassment than satisfaction to the
English Government, heavily involved a? it had become
in Continental politics from Spain to Sweden. If there was
glory to the Londoners in the possession of illustrious
captives and refugees, it must have been well satisfied
after the field of Poictiers. Besides many grandees, some
of royal birth, they had three of kingly rank — John of
France, David, and Edward Baliol. It was to the last of
these only, however, that the title of king, or rather ex-
king as it had then become, was conceded. The others
were "John de Valois," or sometimes **our adversary of
France," and " David de Bruce.''

On the English state papers of the day there are traces
of negotiations with King David, the purport of which is
kept secret.^ There are powers given for the ultimate
release of the king on satisfactory conditions, but those
conditions are not intrusted to writing. Negotiations of
this kind always excite suspicion ; and among the theories
set afloat on this occasion, one is that David had listened
to proposals for his release on the condition of acknow-
ledging Lionel, the younger brother of the Black Prince,
as heir of the crown of Scotland ; but that no satisfactory
assurances could be given by him that such an engage-
ment would be fulfilled. The English Government might
indeed by this time have known the futility of parchment
itipulations for the annexation of Scotland, and that no

' Secretse Instnictioncs, Focdera (Record edition), ili. 24a.

332 DAVID 11.

one had power to dispose of the liberties of the people
Their remedy for such a disposal of their allegiance would
have been the simplest possible — the acknowledgment of
the Steward as king, by a mere anticipation of what was
to be on David's death. It is suggestive to note at this
time a paper, which shows a sense of the spirit in which
the Scots took all questions of government — that of retain-
ing their ancient customs and liberties. A proclamation is
issued, intimating that all the Scots who shall come to
King Edward's peace and obedience shall enjoy the old
laws, liberties, and customs enjoyed by their ancestors in
the days of Alexander III.^ It was now far too late in
the day for such promises to have any effect — even if,
coming from the King of England, they could ever have
found reliance. It was in fact but a mimicry of those
promises to the English people for the renewal of the
charters — promises which never were kept when they
could be broken.

The English Court at last found that the best they
could make of their acquisition was a pecuniary specu-
lation. There is a wearisome succession of treaties on
this matter, in the course of which David was permitted
to pay a visit to Scotland, giving hostages for his return.
The ransom of David was at last adjusted at a hundred
thousand merks, and the Estates of the Scots Parliament
acknowledged this as a national debt A nation's faith,
however, was hard to bind in that age and long afterwards,
and the elaborate mechanism adopted on this occasion
affords a study in legal and diplomatic ingenuity. Each
of the Estates — the Church, the Baronage, and the Bur-
gage — ^grants a separate obligation, each binding on its
own body at large, and especially on certain individual

^ '* In legibus, libertatibus, et liberis consuetudinibus, quibns ipsi
ct eonim antecessores, tempore Celebris memorise Alexandri, quon-
dam Regis Scotioe, rationabiliter uti et gaudere consaeverant, &c.,
manuteneri et nostro nomine prout justumfuerit conservari." — Foedera
(Record edition), iii. 237.

Afterwards, in 1356, a similar declaration u specially made to th«
inhabitants of Teviotdale, spoken of as giving loyal service against
the king's enemies of Scotland. — Ibid., 331.

BARGAIN FOR HIS RELEASE, 1347. 333

members who become personally responsible.^ These
documents are full of oaths and promises ; of special obli-
gations to submit to all kinds of authorities, clerical and
lay, that can extract the money from them, and to take
advantage of no laws or powers by which they can exempt
themselves. Great pains were taken to oblige the debtors
not to seek any Papal exemption from their obligations,
and to reject any such exemption if it should be issued ;
and that this was a real risk is shown by a little incident
connected with the affair. France subscribed certain gold
nobles to the ransom fund, under the condition that,
should the Pope exempt Scotland from the debt, the
money was to be spent on an invasion of England. The
Papal Court, at all events, did not help in the payment.
It was a special obligation on the churchmen that they
should apply for a Papal confirmation of the debt as bind-
ing on the Church, but their request to be subject to this
obligation was refused. But the best security that England
obtained was real and personal. Several of the chief Scots
lords were named, including the Steward — three of whom
must ever reside in England as hostages for the payment
of the debt — along with twenty men of noble houses.
Under these conditions King David returned to Scotland
in the autumn of 1357.*

Throughout the tedious negotiations for his ransom, and
even after he returned and reigned, he was ever called in
the English documents David de Bruce, while Edward
Baliol was called King of Scots, and in that capacity was
heard as a party in King Edward's negotiations with
" those of Scotland." Before the adjustment of David's
release was accomplished, it seems to have occurred to
Edward and his advisers that something might be made
of Edward BalioL He was absolutely in their hands, and
must do for his very maintenance what they might please
to exact. Accordingly, in all due form they extracted

* The list of persons responsible for the burghs as given in the
Foedera may be compared with the many Norman-sounding names
we have come across in dealing with the nobility of Scotland.

' See Foedera (Record edition), iii. 365 ti seq.

334 DAVID II.

from him, in 1356, an absolute gift and surrender of hit
crown and kingdom of Scotland to King Edward and his
heirs, and livery and seisin of the transference were taken
in all proper form. It is part of the spirit and practice of
feudal conveyancing to set forth the consideration for any
transference of power or property — absolute gifts for no
reason were discountenanced. Edward Baliol gave as his
reason for the transference, the turbulent nature of his
Scots subjects, and their rebellious practices against, not
only himself, but his Lord Superior. In a separate in-
denture Edward of England acknowledged the donation,
and granted to the donor of it an annual pension of two
thousand pounds, to be paid at stated quarterly terms.
The bundle of carefully-drafted papers in which the stages
of the transaction are recorded, had little chance of pro-
ducing any immediate effect on the fief so given up to its
lord superior. These parchments, however, might come
to be of use at some after-time to the crown of England,
and it was as well to have them, as they could be
easily got.*

Baliol was the more thoroughly at the mercy of the
King of England, that his estates in France had been
forfeited as those of an enemy — a natural effect of the
alliance offensive and defensive between France and Scot-
land.* Crippled and endangered as she was, France
endeavoured to help her ally. Considerable sums of
money were sent to assist the Scots. What was less
needed, yet showed goodwill, a small body of men-at-arms
was sent over in 1355 under the command of the Sieure
Eugene de Garancier. They partook in the most im-
portant warlike affair undertaken by the Scots during their
king's captivity — ^an attempt to recover Berwick. The
town was taken and pillaged, but the casde held out and

* See them at lencth in the Foedera (Record edition), iii. 317 e/ ja/
The designations of the parties in the preambles of the writs may be
thought interesting ; they are, ** Tresexceilentz et Puissantz Princes
Monsieur Edward, par le grace de Dieu Roi d'Engleterre et de
France, d'une part, et Monsieur Edward de Baliol, Koi d*£sooc«y
d'autre part.''

* Michel, Les Ecossais en France, i. 66.

INVASION FROM ENGLAND, 1355-56. 335

gave protection to many of the citizens ; nor could the
town be retained while such a neighbour remained with
the enemy. Edward himself, just returned from France,
appeared before it with such a force that there was no
alternative but capitulation. The town was taken by the
Scots in November 1355, and lost in the following Jan^
uary. In that short period the French force, which had
done good service, was allowed — nay, it would appear,
pressed — to depart The Scots were more in need of
money than of men. The French were luxurious and
troublesome guests, and the Scots felt ashamed of the
sordid poverty in which a long war for existence involved
them. Having brought a fine army into Scotland — the
chronicles say it was eighty thousand strong — King Ed-
ward was determined to do more than merely rescue
Berwick. He marched onwards to the Forth. The old
Scots policy for exhausting an invasion was followed up
very successfully. He had no opportunity of fighting a
battle, and found the country empty both of men and
food. He had commissioned a fleet to import a commis-
sariat, but the vessels were dispersed by the winter storms.
It was necessary to retreat and disperse the army — a course
which such a king as Edward, after the mighty prepara-
tions he had made, must have taken with extreme bitter-
ness of disappointment. It was, perhaps, this feeling
diffused through the army that rendered it extremely
destructive. It left marks and recollections very inimical
to the policy of King Edward, whose object was to let the
Scots feel that he would make a good ruler over them.
The invasion was specially noted by the mischief done to
the religious houses, especially to the church of the Fran-
ciscans at Haddington, which had a place in the admira-
tion of the country as " the Lamp of the Lothians." This
was a scandal which his grandfather would have carefiiUy
avoided.

These devastations had the eflfect of reversing the moral
conditions of the quarrel between the two countries. From
the Battle of the Standard down to that of Neville's Cross,
the English monks who chronicled events had been able
to represent the cause of Scotland against England as that

336 DAVID II.

of the unbeliever against the Church, especially manifested
in the destruction of holy things, and the slaying of holy
men within the sanctified territory of St Cuthbert. This
spiritual weapon had now changed hands. The chronicles
are full of the impious barbarities of the English soldiers
and sailors, and the awful judgments by which they were
avenged. Walter Bowmaker, for instance, narrates an
incident told to him by a good and very trustworthy
friend who was present and saw it happen, being twelve
years old at the time. Certain English sailors invaded
the church of Whitekirk, on the coast of East Lothian,
where was a shrine of the Virgin endowed with costly
gems. One man snatched a ring from the Virgin's image
so rudely as to mutilate the finger it belonged to, when
forthwith a crucifix fell from above and dashed his brains
out. It was recorded that a ship laden with the spoil of
this and other sacred places was attacked by a vehement
tempest and foundered off Tynemouth.^

Though the English expedition fell far short of any
success adequate to its pretensions, yet it appears to have
regained a great part of that southern district which Baliol
had presented to the King of England, which had been
really brought under subjection, but which had been
gradually absorbed again into Scotland. We know that
a great part of this country near the English border re-
mained for many years in peaceable possession of the
English crown and subject to English administration,
exercised, according to proclamation, in conformity with
the old customs of Scotland In the succession of truces

^ It was probably on account of the particular form in which this
shrine displayed its miraculous powers that the celebrated i£neas
Sylvius, Pope Pius II., thought it would be a suitable recipient for
his thankfulness on the occasion of safely landing in Scotland after a
stormy perilous voyage. He made a pilgrimage accordingly, from
which he frankly admits that he had anything but benefit in the flesh,
whatever else he gained. In fact, the walking ten miles thither and
ten miles back barefooted on the frozen ground teems to have given

by him as Whitekirk.

MARGARET LOGIE, 1363. 337

and the complicated negotiations about the release of the
king and the payment of his ransom money, Scotland had
to let these acquisitions alone. An Act of the Scots Par-
liament of the year 1367 takes notice of these districts as
inhabited by persons at the peace of the King of England,
and makes provision for preserving a record of the succes-
sion to estates within them held to belong to the subjects
of the crown of Scotland who cannot enter on possession
of them.i

The return of their king after his long exile did not
happen, in this instance, to be among the events in which
a people acknowledge themselves as blessed by a long-
desired and long-deferred boon. After the splendours of
London, where crowds of illustrious persons assembled
either as captives or guests, he seems to have felt the sor-
didness of his position in his own kingdom as intolerable.
He went back to England, over and over again, though
each visit put him in danger of detention there, if on no
other ground, as an additional pledge for the payment of
his ransom money. This was a heavy burden on all ranks
of people in Scotland, and, for all that vigorous efforts
were made to complete it, it fell into arrears. Every visit
required stringent engagements for his restoration to his
people, yet he could not keep himself among them. His
domestic life did not commend him to their affection ; it
became matter of public talk, from the mysterious murder
of a female companion who had accompanied him from
England.

In 1362 the queen, Johanna, Edward's sister, died
childless. She seems to have been a faithful helpmate to
her husband through all his changes of fortune. She
came with him from France. We find her afterwards ob-
taining a licence to join him in his captivity in England,
and she was included in the passports to revisit England
after his release. Her brother's policy did not permit
him on these occasions to give her the title of queen, and
he addresses her as our dear sister Johanna.

Next year David married a certain " Margaret Logie.*

* Act. Pari., i. (Da v. II.) 145.
VOL. II. V

338 DAVID II.

She was a widow, and Logie was the name of her hus-
band. Her own family name is unknown, and in tradi-
tional history she is treated as a person of obscure birth,
unfit to match with a king. Genealogists have found rea-
son to believe that she was neither beautiful nor very young,
while the affair is treated in the histories as an entire sur-
render to youthful attractions — a love-match, as it would
be termed, if there had been more romance in it What-
ever may have been the motive for the union, it seems to
have been an imprudent, indeed a dangerous act Though
King Edward III. was no friend of Scotland, it made a
sort of standard of equality that his sister should be queen ;
and putting an obscure person in her place seemed to be
courting the humiliation to which he would fain reduce
the King of Scots. The king*s partiality for England, and
doubts and suspicions about his doings there, had spread
an irritation and restlessness which almost broke into
insurrection.

The Steward was the parliamentary heir to the throne ;
and he and his many adherents could not look with much
satisfaction to the marriage of a man not yet forty years
of age, whose offspring might supersede him ; and if they
could not graciously object to such a step in itself, such
considerations would not tend to reconcile them to offen-
sive specialties in his method of taking it We find the
king taking his new wife in his journeys to England, where,
for aught that the credentials obtained from the English
Court show, she was as highly honoured as her predeces-
sor of the English blood-royal. They went together on
a pious pilgrimage to the tomb of St Thomas h Becket
The end of the affair is mysterious. The chronicles say
that she was divorced from the king, and that she got a
hearing against the decree at the Court of Rome; but
there is no full evidence as to the ground on which the
process of divorce was raised against her, or the method
in which she made her appeal, although it is believed that
the Papal Court of Avignon reversed whatever had been
decided to her prejudice in Scotland.^

^ She "appealed to the Roman Court at Avignon, when a keen mm)

NATIONAL PERILS AND SUSPICIONS, i^CyCG. 339

After the release of King David the truces continued to
be renewed, and there was little show of war on eitlier
side. Yet the independence of Scotland was then in
extreme danger. The raising of the redemption money
payable to England was matter of great difficulty : it fell,
in fact, into arrears, and then, after the manner of usurers,
there was a heavy penal percentage on the original obli-
gation. The communications on this matter between the
two Courts have less the appearance of diplomacy than of
a private correspondence, in which a hard creditor pushes
to the utmost a debtor extremely anxious honestly to pay
his debts, and extremely anxious to avoid both the scandal
and the penal results of unpunctuality. Then it was
among the anxieties and suspicions of the patriotic, that
whenever the creditor showed leniency, he had something
more dangerous in view than the exaction of money. It
was believed that there were plans for the annexation of
Scotland to England, and that the king was a party to
them. The chroniclers tell us how all suspicions were
confirmed. At a parliament held at Scone in 1363, the
king suggested to the Estates that they should select as
his successor one of the sons of the King of England,
especially recommending to them Prince Lionel; they
might be assured that if they did that. King Edward
would, for himself and his representatives, abandon all
claims inconsistent with the independent sovereignty of
the country. The Estates, according to the chronicles, at
once without hesitating, by a sort of acclamation, rejected
the proposal as inadmissible ; no, they would have no
Englishman to reign over them.^ The records of this
parliament, published in recent times, not only attest the
rejection of the proposition when proffered by England,

protracted litigation ensued, productive of much public agitation and
commotion, the issue of which appears to have been a reversal and
actual standing of the marriage, with the high indignation of the
Papal See, that exposed Scotland to the horrors of an interdict and
excommunication by his Holiness.'' — Riddell, Inquiry into the Law
and Practice of Scottish Peerages, 982.

^ '* Cui breviter et sine ulteriori deliberatione aut retractione,
responsum fuit per universaliter singulos, et singulariter universos de

340 DAVID II.

but even through their technicalities bear the impress that
the rejection was made impulsively and disdainfully.^ In
the record of a parliament three years later, reference is
made without entering into detail to four propositions:
homage, the succession, the dismemberment of the king-
dom, and the subsidising of an armed force to England.
It was resolved that all but the last should be flung back
as intolerable, and not to be admitted to deliberation.*

The English state papers reveal to us a transaction
occurring between these two parliaments which, had it
been known in Scotland, would have confirmed the worst
fears of the country. It is a memorandum of an arrange-
ment or private treaty between the King of England and
the King of Scotland. Its purport is, that the King of
England for the time being should succeed to the sove-
reignty of Scotland on King David's death. Scotland is
neither to be a fief of England nor to be absorbed in that
kingdom ; it is to be entirely separate and independent,
the head of the house of Plantagenet being separately
crowned and inducted as King of Scotland. The arrange-
ments for preserving the independence of the country
might merit detailed examination, if the conditions had
ever come up for practical adoption,. or indeed been
publicly known. They are the mere purport of a secret
conference, the evidence of which might have been oblit-
erated by the voracity of a rat or the many perils to which
such parchments are liable. It stands alone as a mere

tribus statibus, NuNQUAM SE velle consentire Anglicum super
S£ regnare." — Scotichron., xiv. 25. Wyntoun has it —

" Thare til the Sutet of his land,
That in conaal ware sittand,
He movit and said he wald that ane
Of the Kyn^ Edwardys sonnys war tane
To be kvng into his sted
Of Scotland, after that he ware dede.
Til that said all his liegis, Nay : .
Na thai consent wald be na way
That any Inglismannes son
In-to that honour suld be dune."— viiL 45.

' **Nullo modo voluerunt concedere nee eis aliqualiter ossentirc.*'
« Act Pari., i. (Dav. II.) 135.

* *'Finaliter refutatis primus tribus punctis tanquam intolerabilibiu
et aon admissibilibus defiberatum." — Ibid., 139.

PARLIAMENTS, 1360-69. 34 1

jotting or memorandum, on which nothing was done. To
have been feudally complete it must have been followed
by a heap of ceremonies and notarial instruments. It is
distinguished from its companion parchments by a special
phraseology — the party to it is, for once, David, by the
grace of God King of Scotland. It would have been
illogical for one who was not a king to give away a king-
dom. That the project was speedily abandoned is shown
by the immediate resumption of the old form by which
the King of Scots is recognised in the Foedera — David de
Bruce. ^ Though this affair may not have been known
in Scotland, and though peace continued, yet there were
abundant elements of apprehension. We can easily be-
lieve, therefore, that there was cordial satisfaction in the
country when, in 1369, King Edward was again called
abroad, and anxiously negotiated a fourteen years' truce
with Scotland.

The parliaments held after the release of King David
showed a sort of surly resoluteness in checking abuses
and stretches of the prerogative. There was a general
admonitory resolution demanding that strict justice should
be administered between man and man in the courts of
law, and that favour should be shown to no one. It was
enacted that writs issuing from the King's Chapel in
Chancery were not to be recalled — that is to say, that
actions at law once begun should proceed before the
proper tribunals in common form, and should not be
stopped at the instance of any powerful person. Royal
remissions for damage or injury done were to be null,
unless the persons injured were satisfied. It was enacted
that no justiciar, sheriff, or other ministerial officer of the
crown, should execute any warrant, be it under the great
seal, the privy seal, or the signet, if it were contrary to
statute or common form of law. Beyond the established
feudal dues nothing was to be taken from the community
for the king's use without prompt payment. Horses were
not to be sent to graze on peasants' lands ; and those who

' "-Super nomine regnorum Anglire et Scoti?e colloquium et trac»
tatus."— Foedera (Record edition), fii. 715, 723.

342 DAVID II.

infringed this rule were to be liable to penalties according
to the amount of damage done and their station in life.
Complaint was made that the burdens of the country were
aggravated by the gift of royal estates and rights of feudal
dues to favoured persons. These were to be resumed, so
that the property of the crown should be restored to its
original state at the time of King Robert's accession ; — if
it was thought fit to reward any one for meritorious ser-
vice, let it be done by advice of the council out of the
movable property of the crown. The liberal supplies
granted to the crown were to be used for the special pur-
poses for which they were raised, such as the payment of
the king's ransom, and not diverted to other purposes.
This, whatever effect it had in practice, announces the
principle of the double parliamentary control of the pre-
sent day — a vote for the appropriation as well as for the
granting of the supplies. It has been noticed that in the
collections of the Scots Acts made in the early part of
the seventeenth century, some of these enactments are
omitted, although they existed in the manuscripts from
which the collections must have been made.^ This is in
character with a propensity at that period to overlook
whatever bore testimony, during earlier times, to the free-
dom of the people and the control on the royal prerogative
in Scotland.

The only active affair in which King David became
concerned after the inroad in which he was made captive,
was an expedition to bring the outlying districts of the
Highlands and the Isles under complete subjection, and
especially to make them contribute to the taxation of the
country. John of the Isles met him at Inverness, pro-
mising submission and everything that was desired — an
engagement of the value of which we shall have occasion
to take account. This was in the year 1369. The king
was then close to his end ; he died oil the 2 2d of February
1370. Nominally his reign was long — it had lasted for
forty-two years — yet at his death he was but forty-seven
years old.

^ Frcfftcc to the Scots Acts.

343

CHAPTER XXVI.

NARRATIVE TO THE DEATH OF ROBERT HI.

ACCESSION OF KOBERT THE HIGH STEWARD—ADJUSTMENT OP THl
SUCCESSION — HIS DYNASTY CALLED THE HOUSE OF STEWART —
GENEALOGICAL MYSTERIES— TROUBLES IN ENGLAND— SCOTLAND'S
PROFIT IN TRANQUILLITY— RENEWAL OF THE LEAGUE WITH FRANCE
— IDENTITY OF THE INTERESTS OF THE TWO COUNTRIES — A BODY OF
ENCH KNIGHTS COME TO SCOTLAND — WHAT THEY SAW THERE—
A LARGER BODY FROM FRANCE, BROUGHT BY THE ADMIRAL JOHN
DE VIENNE — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FRENCH AND SCOTS NOTIONS
OF WAR— DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEIR NOTIONS OF CIVIL RIGHTS
—ANGRY RETURN OF THE FRENCH— THEIR GIFT OF ARMS TO THE
SCOTS— DETERMINATION TO INVADE ENGLAND— A DOUBLE INVASION
BY THE EAST AND THE WEST — THE PERCYS — DOUGLAS — PASSAGE
AT ARMS— THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURN— ITS FAME AND CHARAC-
TERISTICS-DEATH OF KING ROBERT— HIS SON SUCCEEDS— HIS NAME
CHANGED FROM JOHN TO ROBERT, WITH THE REASON— BATTLE BY
TWO BODIES OF HIGHLANDERS ON THE NORTH INCH OF PERTH —
DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING IT— INTERNAL EFFECTS OF THE LONG
CONTEST WITH ENGLAND — AN ENGLISH INVASION — BATTLE OK
HOMILDON— RICHARD II. OF ENGLAND, AND THE QUESTION OF HIS
SEEKING REFUGE IN SCOTLAND— DEATH OF ROTHESAY, THE KING'S
ELDEST SON— SUSPICIONS OF FOUL PLAY— HIS OTHER SON, JAMES,
TAKEN BY AN ENGLISH FORCE ON HIS WAY TO FRANCE— ASCEN-
DANCY OF ALBANY — DEATH OF KING ROBERT IIL

iloBERT the High Steward succeeded his cousin, and was
with all ceremony crowned and anointed at Scone. There
is a whisper in the chronicles that the head of the house
of Douglas intended to dispute the throne with him. The
genealogical conditions which probably created the rumour
will come out in connection with subsequent events.
Meanwhile no sayings or doings on the part of the house
of Douglas took sudi a shape as to leave any disturbing

344 ROBERT II.

maik on the peace of the country : in fact, the succession
of a son to a father could not pass more quietly than this
change of dynasty. Upwards of fifty years had passed
since the parliamentary declaration of his title at the sug-
gestion of his illustrious uncle. The rule of David was
almost that of an interloper; and though his reign was
long, there was so little of it real that its continuance
hardly modified its provisional character. The Steward,
indeed, did little more when he was crowned than con-
tinue the governing duties which had been but occasion-
ally interrupted. The name of his family was Allan, or
Fit2 Allan, but it had become habitual to call them by the
name of the feudal office held by them in Scotland, and
hence Robert II. was the first of the Steward, or, as it
came to be written, the Stewart dynasty.

They obtained their feudal influence through the office
enjoyed by their ancestors at the Court of Scotland — the
office of Steward. . We have already seen a family named
Durward, so powerful as to be in a condition to plot for
sovereignty in Scotland. This family is supposed to have
also had its name from a hereditary office still more
humble, according to modern ideas, than that of the
Steward — the Door-ward, doorkeeper, or porter; but all
who had established places in the royal residence acquired
political power and high rank — a political phenomenon
signally exemplified in the growth of mayors of the palace
in France.^ In their rise these two families are notable
instances of this tendency of the feudal system to give
political influence to those who were near the throne, even
when their functions, nominally at least, partook of a ser-
vile character.

^ According to a legend put in rhyme by Wyntonn, the origin of
the Comyn familv was similar to that of the Durwards. The first ol
the family came from Normandy to the Court of King William, and

" He made hym, lyn he was utark and ttour,
Kepare of hys chawmbyre dure ;
Na langage couth he spek clerly
Rot hyt awyn langage of Normandy ;
Nevertheles yhit qunen he
Oppynyd the dure til niak entri,
' Cum :n, cum in,' he wald lay,
A» he tierd olhir about hym nay."

— Cronykil, yUL a

SETTLEMENT OF THE CROWN, 1370-71. 34S

Among such Acts of Parliament during this reign as
have been preserved to us, there are two regulating the
succession to the crown with such pomp and emphasis as
to show that there were reasons why the Estates should
take a decisive tone. One passed at the opening of the
reign, in the year 137 1, enacts that the king's eldest son,
John, shall succeed him. Another, passed two years later,
names successively the sons of the king by his first wife,
each to succeed on the failure of his elder brother, and
the male children of that elder brother. If the sons of the
first marriage provide no successor to the crown, then
those of the second are to come in their order. ^ This
parliamentary "entail of the crown," as it is sometimes
termed, suggests a word of explanation about the king's
domestic history.

In early life he had married Elizabeth, a daughter of
Sir Adam Mure of Rowallan. By her he had four sons
and six daughters. The daughters strengthened the royal
house by marriages with the most powerful famiHes of
the country : one of them became the wife of the Lord
of Islay and the Isles — a, union, no doubt, intended to
secure the allegiance of these half-independent regions.
By his second wife, Euphemia Ross, the king had two
sons and four daughters, who, like their sisters, made
influential alliances by marriage. Thus he was thoroughly
a patriarch king, with an offspring giving successive heirs
on the failure of older lines in such abundance as might
seem for ever to save Scotland from the chance of a dis-
puted succession such as was about to desolate England.

But there was a reason for the parliamentary settlement
of the crown, in the ecclesiastical or canon law, by
which the children of Elizabeth Mure were held to be ille-
gitimate. Under that law they were not born in wedlock,
and under that law the parents could not have been
wedded without a dispensation. That those disqualifi-
cations have been conclusively proved by adepts in the
canon law, only shows historically that, in the fourteenth
century, the Church had not been powerful enough to en-

* Act Pari, Roll, ii. 182, 185.

34^ ROBERT IT.

force its rules upon the state. Nothing they can say can
undo the fact, that Elizabeth Mure was the mother of
a race of kings who actually reigned Still, conformity
with the ecclesiastical rules was so far by degrees prevail-
ing, that, sanctioned as the succession of the Stewarts was
by a parliamentary tide, the doubts about the offspring of
Elizabeth Mure seemed to hover round the throne. It
was connected with the tragedy of King James l.'s death,
and came out in times much later in a shape rather ludi-
crous than tragic.^

The marriage law was distinctly a field of contest be-
tween the two powers, the civil and the ecclesiastical ;
for, as this instance peculiarly exemplified, the Church was
fighting neither, for religion nor decorum, but for power. It
was not only determining that its own ceremonies should
be essential to a valid union, but that it should have in a
great measure the right to decide who could and who
could not be united. The forbidden degrees were ex-
tended to cousinhood, called the second degree of con-
languinity, and protracted to the grandchildren of cousins-
german. In the application of the prohibition to affinity,
those unions which neither at that time, nor in later times,
were allowed the privilege of marriage, were yet sufficient

^ ''One would have thought all dangers to the Stewarts from this
fcource would have been at an end by the seventeenth century. But
as late as 1630, William, Earl of Menteith, lineal heir of the second
family, procured himself to be served heir to David, Earl of Stratheni,
eldest son of Euphemia Ross ; and at the same time, probably rather
from foolish vamty than ambition, solemnly renounced his right to the
crown of Scotland. Visionary as one would have supposed that right to
be, the idea of it so alarmed Charles I. that he insisted on a reduction
of the service, which was set aside on the notoriously false pre-
text that David, Earl of Strathem, died without issue. The i^rl of
Menteith was degraded from the important offices which he held, —
of Justice-General, President of the Council, and Lord of Session ;
and the greatest anxiety was evinced by the king to efface all vestiges
of evidence that the service had ever taken place." — The Lyon King-
at-arms in 'Macmillan's Magazine' for June 1867, p. 109. The lost
conspicuous representative of Euphemia Ross and the legitimate race
of Stewart was, oddly enough. Captain Barclay of Ury, illustrious a

Feneration or two ago as a pugilist, a pedestrian, and an amateur
river of stage-coaches.

THE LEGITIMACY OF THE STEWARTS. 347

to bring the element of forbidden degree into the position
of the erring parties. This we shall see strangely influ-
encing the tragic events of Queen Mary's reign.^

The question whether the Stewart line of sovereigns
who succeeded each other after the first of the family
should have been the sovereigns of Scotland, and in their
later generation of England too, had been amply dis-
cussed, when a Papal dispensation for the marriage of
Robert the Stewart with Elizabeth Mure was discovered.
Even had this dispensation not professed to legitimate the
offspring, the marriage of the parents alone sufficed to that
end, but only if the parents could have legally married
before the children were born. Here there was a nicety
by which the adepts of the canon law could disqualify a
race of sovereigns who had reigned and filled a large place
in history. If the Pope had granted the dispensation
before the children were born, they would have been legit-
imate, though the marriage itself was postponed. But as
the parents were not in a position in which they could
have lawfully married each other before their children
were born, then were these children irretrievably ille-
gitimate.^

^ The limits arc thus defined by an author very leanied in the prac-
tice of this branch of law in Scotland : '*By the canon law (dif-
ferent from the civil) the degrees of forbidden relationship were
computed downwards, but in one line. A brotlier and sistei gi^ere
in the first degree — a. cousin-german in the second — tlie children of
the cousin-german in the third — and the grandchildren of the cousin-
german in the fourth, when the prohibited degrees wtre legally
SPENT and CEASED, without being protracted to the fifth, that is, to
^rAi/-grandchildren of cousins-german, as the learned gentleman has
represented." — Stewartiana, by John Riddell, 45. The last clause
of the quotation refers to the cause of the words emphasised so
severely. The definition is uttered in controversy, and hence it
comes out with a sort of emphatic clearness, though from the pen of
a wonderfully hazy and opaque writer.

^ When, in 1789, the Bull of Dispensation said to have been granted
was discovered by Andrew Stuart, the historian of the house of Scwart,
there was a disposition among historical authors to consider the ques-
tion at rest. But the Bull only served to move the combative spirit of
the late John Riddell, perhaps the profoundest peerage and genealogy
lawyer that Scotland has had the honour of producing, lie wan tne
terror of all worshipful houses, conscious oi possible flaws ol pedi-

345 ROBERT II.

The difficulties and calamities which thickened round
the latter days of Edward III. made King Robert's reign
peaceful and uneventful. Diplomatic phraseology shows
that tnis came of necessity, not goodwill, and that tlie
English Government would have disturbed Scotland if it
could. There was a little harmless bickering about the
old difficulty. In rendering the instalments of the ransom
of King David, care was always taken to proclaim in full
the dignities of the King of Scots. Though thus accom-
panied, the English exchequer did not disdain to accept
of the money. In acknowledging the receipt of it, how-
ever, no other name was conceded to the monarch who
had paid it but " Robert of Scotland." The Scots expos-
tulated against this, but could not remedy it The money
had been in each instance rendered : they could not get it
back, and must be content with the form in which their
creditor made out his receipts.

At the beginning of the reign the league with France
was renewed in strong terms. A solemn embassy was
sent to Paris, one of the ambassadors being Sir Archibald
Douglas, and another Walter Wardlaw, afterwards raised
to the dignity of cardinal. We are told that he had taught
pliilosophy with applause in the University of Paris. ^ The

gree glossed over by friendly historians. What may be called the
text on which he lectured at length is, — " (i.) That Robert 111. was
born in incestuous concubinage — that status then legally applying
before the Reformation, — ^however odd it may seem at present, to the
offspring of individuals so situated as his father and mother; and (2.)
That such being the fact, Robert III. in ordinary course could not be
legitimated from the legal bar of incest by a subsequent marriage upon a
dispensation^ however now regular, between his parents.** — Riddel I's
Stewartiana, 2. Such conclusions, and the reasonings that lead to
them, might have been put to use as a logical caricature of the doc-
trines about the divine right of legitimate succession much indulged
in down to times within the memory of persons still living, and, by
the way, devoted to the direct descendants of this same Eliaabeth
Mure. When the legitimists have rid themselves of the reigning
members of the Stewart family, until they find the descendants of
Euphemia Ross, they are ushered further back to find that Robert the
Bruce superseded the legitimate race of Baliol, and might perhaps be
called still further off the line of practical succession and actual his-
tory to the misty descent of the Comyns from Donald Bain.
I Michel, i. 71.

RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND, 1 37 7. 349

league or alliance bound the two countries to each other
by very strong ties. Neither was to make war or peace
with England without the assent of the other. When
England attacked one of the allies, the other was bound
to give it aid. The danger of possible interference by
France in the internal affairs of Scotland seems then to
have been anticipated ; it was stipulated that in the case
of a disputed succession France was not to interfere, but
was to leave the settlement to the Scots Parliament.* A
separate document, already mentioned, exists, in which
the King of France engaged himself to give special aid.
He promises a hundred thousand gold nobles as a contri-
bution to the ransom money of King David, with the pro-
vision that if there should be a Papal dispensation of that
debt the money is to be employed in making war on
England. There is a promise to send equipments for a
thousand Scots, and to send to Scotland a thousand men-
at-arms of France.^

The death of Edward III. in 1377 made no immediate
difference to Scotland. England was still in difficulties.
They came less from foreign relations than from the insur-
rection of Wat Tyler and other home troubles. To Scot-
land it was enough that her enemy was crippled, and that
the evil day when the attempts at annexation would be
renewed was postponed. England desired a renewal of
the fourteen years* truce, and so earnestly that, to promote
the object, she was prepared to be indulgent about the
settlement of the arrears of King David's ransom.

The truce could not prevent almost continual petty
warfare on the borders. England, in fact, had left there
an incitement to contention. It could not be that, while
part of Scotland was held under English rule, the neigh-
bouring Scots should abstain from harassing the invaders
and pressing them out. They were, in fact, by slow de-
grees gaining back the conquered territory ; and in doing
so, they felt that they had only the local influences of
England to resist ; the central government was too seri-

^ Fcedera, Scots Acts, i. 195.

' Unissued vol. of Records of the Parliament of Scotland, 122.

350 ROBERT II.

ously employed otherwise to strike them. So for instance;
in the year 1385, we find an Act of Parliament for reorgan-
ising the administration of justice among the inhabitants
of Teviotdale, who, having been at the peace of the King
of England, had, through the exertions of William, Lord
Douglas, been brought to the peace of the King of Scots, ^
At the conclusion of the truce in 138 1, John of Gaunt
marched to the border with a powerful army, but his pro-
fessed object was to preserve peace and put a pressure on
for the renewal of the truce. Soon afterwards this eminent
person, needing refuge from his foes of England, found it
m Scotland, where he was entertained with chivalrous
munificence : this recalled the good old days when King
Malcolm entertained the Aetheling and his sister.

At this time the interests of Scotland, and especially
the question of future peace or war, were to a great extent
in the hands of France. The identity of the interests of
the two countries was becoming more visible, and their
connection closer. In 1379, indeed, King Charles V.
appointed a solemn embassy to Scotland, doubtless to
keep the country right about its conduct on the conclu-
sion of the truce. Owing, however, to some difficulties
in which he got involved on his own side of the water,
the appointed ambassador, the Lord of Boumezel, got no
nearer to Scotland than the Dutch port of Helvoetsluys.*
In 1383 the truce was readjusted between England and
France, with the stipulation that Scotland might partake
in it if she so willed. Ambassadors or messengers were
sent to communicate with the Government of Scotland.
They required to pass through England, and it was said
that their letters of safe-conduct were delayed to let a blow
be struck against the Scots before they had an opportunity
of joining in the truce. At all events, after it was con-
cluded the Earls of Northumberland and Nottingham
suddenly and unexpectedly crossed the border with two

1 Scots Acts, i. 188.

• For an account of the Continental side of the French intercourse
with Scotland at this time, the Author refers to his work called ' The
Scot Abroad,' i. 1 10 ^/ seq.

FRENCH VISITORS, 1383. 351

thousand men-at-arms and six thousand bowmen, slaughter-
ing and burning as far as Edinburgh. They had scarcely
gone, when Scotland received an unexpected visit of a
different kind. A body of distinguished knights in the
service of France, some thirty in number, felt at a loss
how to dispose of themselves in time of peace, and resolved
to wander to some spot where they might find war. They
knew that the truce had not been communicated to Scot-
land, and, putting to sea at Helvoetsluys, they landed at
Montrose and found their way to Perth. They sent two
of their number to Edinburgh to inform the Government
of their arrival, and of their desire to find employment in
fighting with the English. At the very same time the
ambassadors sent to communicate the truce arrived there.
It was accepted by the king, or the Government acting in
his name ; but, imbittered by the recent English raid, the
Estates would not accept of it. It is in the name of the
sovereign that, even under the parliamentary rule of the
present day, peace and war are made. We shall after-
wards see that in Scotland this power was jealously retained
by the Estates. If it could have been said at this period
that the consent of Parliament had no influence on such
a question, the dealings of England gave it an influence.
Her public documents would not yet admit Scotland to
be a sovereignty, or deal with the king, and the proffer of
the truce was made to " our adversary of Scotland." ^
Perhaps the Scots did not much concern themselves with
such a nicety. They were determined to avenge the last
inroad from England; and a little to the astonishment,
and very much to the delight, of their visitors, these were
informed that, for all the King of Scots said otherwise, they
should have an opportunity of enjoying a raid into Eng-
land. Froissart, who probably got his account from the
French visitors, describes their delight in seeing fifteen
thousand Scots mounted on their small horses ready to
ride across the border. " They began their march," says
he, " through the woods and forests of their country, and
entered Northumberland on the lands of the Lord Percy

* See passim Foedera of the period

2S2 ROBERT IL

which they pillaged and burnt. They advanced farther,
and then returned through the estates of the Earl of Not-
tingham and the Lord Mowbray, to whose lands they did
much damage." ^ It was thought natural that so large a
force might attempt to recover Roxburgh Casde, still in
the hands of the English ; but the Scots army had too
valuable a booty in cattle and prisoners to be thus risked,
and they brought their new property home with all speed.
An ambassador was sent to London to explain this affair,
and express the desire of the Goveniment of Scotland to
partake in the truce. The inroad from England was
pleaded in extenuation, and a pretty good case was made
out for holding quits. Its reasonableness would hardly
have sufficed to appease the wrath naturally felt by the
English Government, but it happened that Lancaster wa.s
planning his expedition in Spain, and he was glad of a
fair excuse for peace, so that the Scots ambassador brought
back with him a peaceful answer. The strangers returned
to France, where they reported what they had seen, and
represented how eminently available Scotland might be
made for checking and harassing England. Accordingly,
when the truce was expiring in 1385, the French, instead
of urging its renewal, Atted out an expedition to Scotland
of two thousand men, one thousand of them mounted men-
at-arms. Along with these, and far more welcome, came
a thousand complete stand of arms and armour, and fifty
thousand gold pieces. The expedition was commanded
by a knight of renown, John de Vienne, Admiral of
France.

Scotland had received the thirty knights who landed
at Montrose with such hospitality that they had no re-
])roaches to make. But here were two thousand men,
accustomed to the luxurious living of Frenchmen of the
higher order — as Froissart says, "used to handsome
hotels, ornamented apartments, and castles, with good
soft beds to repose on." The entertainment of such
guests was a serious national burden ; in fact it became
too heavy, for the long war had brought Scotland to

FRENCH VISITORS, 1385. 353

abject poverty. They observed that Edinburgh, the
capital of the country, was inferior to the secondary towns
of France, and contained but four thousand houses : in
these only a portion of the two thousand could be har-
boured, and the rest had to seek still more sordid quarters
in the neighbourhood, or in the smaller towns — some of
them being scattered so far to the south as Kelso, and
others northward in Fifeshire. They expected a splendid
opportunity, however, for seeing the grand game of war ;
for England was resolved to make one of her great efforts
for the annexation of Scotland. An army, said by the
more moderate of the chroniclers to be fully seventy thou-
sand strong, marched to the border^ under the command
of the young King Richard. The Scots doubled their
usual force, and were able to muster thirty thousand. The
king came to see his army and do courtesy to the strangers,
but his fighting days were over. The French chronicler
describes him ** with red bleared eyes, of the colour of
sandal'Wood, which clearly showed he was no valiant man,
but one who would rather remain at home than march to
the field ; he had, however, nine sons who loved arms."
There now arose a characteristic dispute between the
strangers and the Scots leaders : Vienne was for an imme-
diate battle; Douglas, for the Scots, proposed to follow
the old-established tactic of clearing the country, and only
fighting when driven to the alternative of battle. In fact,
to the French war was a pastime ; to the Scots it was the
serious business of the world, national life or death de-
pending on success or failure. The dispute waxed hot,
and the impetuous Frenchman spoke scornfully of the
^irit of his Scots allies. He was only silenced by an
incident, which shows how thoroughly the Scots under-
stood the business of war according to their own method
of conducting it — how well they knew the motions of the
enemy while keeping their own unrevealed. Douglas
offered to let the admiral see and count the enemy, and
then decide on his course. Accordingly he was taken to
the top of a hill, whence, to his amazement, he could see
the whole English force as if it were reviewed before him.
He estimated that he saw there six thousand men-at-arms

VOL. II, 2

354 ROBERT II.

and sixty thousand archers, and concurred in the hopeless-
ness of meeting such a force in the field.

The admiral and his followers seem now to have thought
that the war must come to an end — that there was nothing
for it but a surrender. This was a conclusion, however,
entirely unkno^vn in Scots warfare; and, still further to
his amazement, the admiral was made to understand that,
while the great English army was left to do its worst in
Scotland, his countr)rmen might have an opportunity of
joining the Scots in an invasion of England. Accordingly,
they swept Cumberland and Westmoreland after the old
fashion. They were unmolested, for the country had been
drained of men for the English army ; and we are told that
" the French said among themselves they had burned in
the bishoprics of Durham and Carlisle more than the value
of all the towns in the kingdom of Scotland." They re-
turned to find desolation in Scotland. The great English
army had marched to the Forth, finding little that they
could even destroy save the religious houses. They made
the incursion memorable by the destruction of the rich
Abbey of Melrose.^ Then came the established fate of
such invading armies — starvation. It was early in the
year, when the grain was but growing, while the Scots
had driven their cattle and carried their ripe grain and
other effects to the shelter of the nearest hills ; and the
fleet which was to have provisioned the English army
failed it as usual. Thus each army went back to its
own country.

The surprises which were to greet the French in this
strange land were not yet over. No sooner was the Eng-
lish host fairly across the border than the desert became
animated. The people crept down from the hills with
their cattle and effects, and these received a contribution
from the plunder of England. The Scots took the devas-
tating of their land with marvellous indifference; and

* Some compunction seems to have been felt for this act. On 25lh
October 1389 an allowance was made to the abbey from the local cus-
toms of Berwick, consideratione destrucHonis etarsinarum which it had
Mistained from the King of England by his army. — Foedera,

FRENCH VISITORS, 1385. 355

they needed but a few beams of wood to restore their
burnt cottages and make themselves as comfortable as, in
tliose unsettled times, they ever were.

Before they were done with Scotland the strangers were
subjected to unpleasant experiences, from which, however,
it is our good fortune to catch a singularly clear and signi-
ficant picture of the social and political condition of the
people. It is ever the stranger, indeed, who gives the
liveliest pictures of the internal condition of a people, since
he describes it by contrast; hence it was Montesquieu
and De Lolme who first showed to the British people the
actual practical elements of the freedom of their constitu-
tion. The French deemed themselves very scurvily used
by the Scots, and their record of grievances shows the
contrast between the slavish condition of the peasantry in-
their own country and the thorough freedom of the Scots.
To an eminent Scot or other stranger in France it would
be but natural to communicate, by way of hospitality, the
power of the native nobles to live at free quarters and
plunder the peasantry at their discretion. The French
complained bitterly that they got no such privilege in Scot-
land. On the contrary, when they carried off a cow or tlie
contents of a bam, the owner, with a parcel of ruffian
neighbours, would assault the purveying party, and punish
them savagely, insomuch that not a varlet dared leave the
lines to bring in provisions. Nay, when they rode abroad,
the people rudely called to them to keep the paths and
not trample down the growing crops ; and when the re-
monstrances of these churls were treated with the con-
tempt they deserved, a score was run up against the
strangers for damage done to the country folks. Frois-
sart's bitter account of this inhospitality is confirmed by
the statute-book. The French took high ground, and it
was necessary that from high authority they should be
told of the incompatibility of their claims with the rights
of the people. The Estates took the matter up, and re-
quired the admiral to come to agreement with them by
indenture, the leading stipulation of which is, that no
provender is to be taken by force, and everything received
by the French troops is to be duly paid for. There is a

,aM

fitf

xx^

•*.^*

^i^-^^^S?^

ot«^-'^

-.:■»••

.nr- —

,««^

5» »- 'Ui*^

INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1388. 357

was now withdrawn, and it was an interesting question
what policy Scotland should pursue. Quietness and pre*
paration for defence would have been the natural alter*
native ; but the blood of the country was up, and it had
been found on more than one occasion that the best
security for Scotland lay in being mischievous and dan-
gerous to England. The occasion, too, was tempting.
The great army that was to bring the long contest with
Scotland to an end was dispersed, and the experience of
those who had served on it was not of a kind to make
good soldiers — it was, in modem military phrase, demoral-
ising. But even if reassembled, there was other work for
it, for France was threatening an invasion of England on
a great scale. The family disputes that paralysed the
Government of Richard II. were at their worst But there
was perhaps a still stronger temptation to the Scots, in
seeing that the two opponents, who in union were so for-
midable to them on the border — the Percy and the Neville
— had fallen at feud with each other.

It was the time, indeed, for accomplishing what had
been suggested by the French — striking at the heart of
England a blow that would be remembered for genera-
tions. The alarm of England, and the vastness of the
preparation consequently made, had baffled this project
when the admiral and his band came over. These were
gone, but the more valuable feature of their mission re-
mained — the thousand stand of complete mail. It had
been reported by the previous band of adventurers that
the Scots were poorly armed. We are told that the arms
sent over were of the finest kind, selected from a choice
store kept at the Castle of Beautd, near Paris, the central
arsenal of France. The delight of those among whom
they were distributed is described as something like that
of children gaining prizes. This possession was a mate-
rial addition to the warlike strength of Scotland. If it

tences. The monk, in recording ilie event, leaves no trace of any
regret that such things should be ; if he feels anything, it is surprise
that this rich and fruitful territory should have remained unharried
since the days of Robert the Bruce.

35 8 ROBERT II.

were not of* itself one of the leading motives of the new
expedition, yet it is evident that so unaccustomed a trea«
sure gave a tone to that expedition. It was less econo-
mical in its temper than previous expeditions, where the
object was to do the greatest possible mischief, and carry
off the largest quantity of property at a small cost of life ;
on this occasion there was an unwonted display of chival-
rous bravado.

The project was as carefully concealed from the king as
from the enemy. A great assemblage was held at Aber-
deen. Here, far from the place of warlike mustering, the
whole project was planned. Those concerned then dis-
persed, as if their business had been completed ; and each
brought the forces he could command to a place of muster,
some two hundred miles from the place of council, on the
edge of the English border.* The force assembled was
perhaps the largest Scotland had ever supplied. The best
authority makes it fully fifty thousand. Such a gathering
could not be made so quietly but that alarming rumours
would pass to those in the north of England most nearly
concerned. It was resolved to send a spy to the muster,
near Jedburgh. An English gentleman undertook the
duty, and got access to the church where the heads of
the army were assembled, passing, as it appears, for one
of their attendants. Returning to a spot where he had
staked his horse, he found it gone ; a well-accoutred steed
unwatched was too tempting a prize in such a motley
assembly. He attempted to walk away, but the sight of
a person booted and spurred for riding walking off con-
tentedly, without making any inquiry concerning his lost
steed, roused suspicion. He was seized and compelled
to serve the Scots with information mstead of his own
people. He was told that his life depended on his telling

^ Froissart calls the plaoe Zedon : this has been c^enerally taken for
Yetholm, the celebrated gipsy town at the base ofthe Cheviots. A
local antiauary, however, makes out a better case for Southdean on
the Jed, about ten miles from Jedburgh. He says its own people
fetill pronounce it Sooden, which requires little variation to oe pro*
nounced like Zedon. — White's History of the Battle of Otterbum,
p. aj.

INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1388. 359

the truth, and telling all ; and those who dealt with him
were sagacious in distinguishing true from false informa-
tion about warlike affairs. It was ascertained that the
English, feeling themselves this time the feebler force of
the two, were to follow the policy of the Scots in the last
affair — invade Scotland while their enemy invaded Eng-
land. Whichever were the direction in which the Scots
passed southward — to the west by Cumberland, or to the
east by Northumberland — the English were to take the
opposite line northwards ; and it was to enable them to
decide between these alternatives that they had commis-
sioned their hopeful spy.

This was valuable information. It helped the leaders of
the Scots to a decided and distinctive tactic : they would
invade England on both sides and puzzle the enemy.
They had among them many who, from repeated inva-
sions, were accurately acquainted with the country, and
they believed that they could so adjust their movements
that, if a battle became imminent, they could bring their
divided army together. The particulars of their informa-
tion decided them on sending the stronger division — in
fact, the bulk of the army — by Carlisle and the west. It
was commanded by Sir Archibald Douglas. The other
division was to make a flying raid to divert attention,
rather than an invasion ; and Froissart says it was made
up of but 300 picked lances, or mounted men-at-arms, and
?ooo footmen. They had the Earls of Douglas, Dunbar,
and Moray for commanders. The policy of both divisions
was to get speedily through the districts near the border,
which had been so often pillaged, and frighten England
by entering on new ground. It was to the smaller divi-
sion on the east line that the most memorable share of
the invasion fell ; and they had passed so rapidly and
quietly, with abstinence from all plunder, that they were
at the gates of Durham ere their presence in England
was distinctly felt. Distant specks of fire, bursting out in
successive ranges at night, and corresponding puffs of
smoke in daylight, showed that they were at work, but
their motions were too quick and devious to be otherwise
traced. The country they were in had been long unpil-

360 ROBERT II.

laged, and they turned northwards heavy-handed with
plunder.

There was a hasty consultation at Alnwick Castle. It
was resolved that the Earl of Northumberland's t^vo sons,
Sir Henry, the renowned Hotspur, and Sir Ralph, should
go to Newcastle, and gather round that strong place the
chivalry of the north, while the earl himself abode at home
with a smaller force ; thus it was hoped the invaders, on
their return, might find themselves between two armies.
The northern barons assembled at Newcastle in great
force. The small party of Scots remained there for three
days, and several passages at arms, tournaments, or out-
post skirmishes, were held by the two forces. It fell out
that in one of these Douglas secured Hotspur's pennon, a
signal triumph to the gainer — as great a mortiAcation to
the loser. Douglas aggravated this by crying out that he
would raise it on the tower of his Castle of Dalkeith.
Percy retorted with a vow that he should not carry it out
of Northumberland. Douglas then, in the true spirit oi
the fashionable chivalry of the time, told him to come
that night and take it ; it would be found in front of the
Douglas's tent.*

The Scots were prepared for a night attack, but the
English barons were against it, for they were yet ignorant
whether the Scots were a separate force, or merely a
detachment of a large army skirmishing to draw the Eng-
lish onwards to destruction, and Percy's impetuosity was
restrained.

The Scots drew off by Rede Water, where they took
the Tower of Pontelands. They then passed on to an-
other tower, bearing the renowned name of Otterburn:
this they attacked in vain. Tired with the hard and dis-
piriting work of an unsuccessful siege, the question was,
what next should be done ? The general feeling was to

^ It was, it leems, his Scots enemies who dubbed youne Percy with
his well-known nickname of Hotspur, eulogistic and geniu rather than
malignant " Quern Scoti quondam vocaverant Henry IfatspHrt, quia
ferventer eos infestaverat." — St Albans Chronicles, Annates Ricard!,
ii. (Rolls edition), 245.

RATTLE OF OTTERBURN, 1388. 36 1

take advantage of the remissness of the enemy and get
clear home with the booty; but Douglas and a few others
were of another mind. It was in the proper spirit of
chivalry that the Percys should have their revenge ; the
honour of carrying off the pennon was hardly complete if
its loser were not offered all opportunity for its recovery.
This was the generous and chivalrous view, and from the
humour the Scots knights were in it carried the day. But
the rules of chivalry did not demand that they should
neglect those of self-defence. They intrenched them-
selves with much labour and diligence. The remains of
their works may still be seen, so strong as to carry the
impression rather of a small fortress than a camp.^ Their
scouts told Percy's party where the Scots were, and at the
same time gave assurance that they were no detachment
from a large force near at hand, but were in all but a small
body not exceeding three thousand. On hearing this,
Hotspur justified his impatient character by the vehe-
mence with which he called to horse, and urged on his
comrades and retainers to help him in the recovery of his
pennon. The Bishop of Durham was coming up with a
reinforcement, but Hotspur would not wait; he had
already eight hundred mounted men and eight thousand
footmen — more than enough for his purpose. They sped
on to Otterburn as fast as the footmen could go, and
instantly attacked the Scots position on a moonlit night,
being the 19th August 1388.

^ The remairui of these worki may be Hccn by going straight up the
hill, behind the monument called Percy's Cross, a short way west of
the village and the burn. It has often biecn supposed that the remains
are those of an old hill-fort which the Scots had found and occupied,
but they are so apt to the purpose in hand that they seem more likely
to have been made for it. There is a chief enclosure with a strong
double rampart, and the remains of some smaller works lower down
the hill, which may have been the secondary camp of the followers
who were attacked in the supposition that tney were the main body.
The whole process of works is much smaller than the average of hifl-
forts. These, too, are generally not on the slope, but the crown of the
hill — in fact, there are the remains of a considerable hill-fort on the
top of the hill behind the Scots camp. Some curious topographical
particulars about the spot will be found in White's History of thi
Battle of Otterburn.

363 ROBERT II.

It was not the purpose of the chivalrous assailants to
make a furtive attack — the Percy war-cry loudly pro-
claimed it to the whole camp. It appears that many of
the Scots knights, tired with their work at the siege of the
tower, had relieved themselves of their armour, and it took
some time to reincase them in the complicated mail cover-
ing with which their friends of France had endowed them.
The impatient Percys had, however, begun their attack on
the quarters of the camp-followers, and these, assisted by
a few spearmen from the ranks, held out while the har-
nessing went on. When the main body were ready for
action, instead of pushing for^vard into the fray they
adopted a tactic which Froissart says they had arranged
beforehand on a careful inspection of the ground, " which,"
he says, ** was the saving of them ; for it is of the greatest
advantage to men-at-arms when attacked in the night to
have previously arranged their mode of defence." They
crept out in the rear, and, sweeping round the camp, fell
upon their assailants in flank. These were fighting the
Scots in their camp, yet were assailed by a Scots force
coming from without, a surprise likely to make them ques-
tion the tale that there was no reserve at hand ; but there
was no panic, and as Froissart says, ** Knights and squires
were of good courage in both parties to fight valiantly ;
cowards there had no place, but hardiness reigned with
goodly feats of arms, for knights and squires were so
joined together at hand-strokes that archers had no place
at neither party. There the Scots showed great hardiness,
and fought merrily with great desire of honour. The
English were three to one. Howbeit I say not but Eng-
lishmen did nobly acquit themselves, for ever the English-
men had rather been slain or taken in the place than fly.
At the beginning the English were so strong that they
recoiled back their enemies. Then the Earl of Douglas,
who was of great heart and high of enterprise, seeing his
men recoil back, then to recover the place and show
knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands, anrl
entered so into the press that he made himself way in
such wise that none durst approach near him, and he was
so well armed that he bore well of such strokes as he re-

BATTLE OF OTTERBURN, 1388. 363

ccivcd." At length he was borne down mortally wounded,
and trodden over in the fight ** The Englishmen knew
well they had borne one down to the earth, but tiiey wist
not who it was, for if they had known that it had been the
Earl of Douglas they would have been thereof so joyful
and so proud that the victory had been theirs. Nor also
the Scots knew not of that adventure till the end of the
battle, for if they had known it they should have been so
sore despaired and discouraged that they would have fied
away." Some of his immediate followers found him, re-
joicing like the old Norsemen that his death, like that of
many ancestors, was to be on a stricken field. With his
latest strength he bade them display his banner and raise
his battle-cry ; and this was done with such heart that the
Scots charged and broke their enemy, who seem in the
thick of the hand-to-hand fight to have lost sight of their
leaders. The younger of these, Ralph, fell like Douglas
sorely wounded, but, rendering himself, was carefully
tended. His elder brother, Hotspur, too, had to yield
himself prisoner, with many others of high degree, and
consequently representing a great value in ransom money.
Froissart says he was told that in this affair " there were
taken or left dead on the field on the side of the English
one thousand and forty men of all descriptions ; in the
pursuit eight hundred and forty, and more than one
thousand wounded Of the Scots there were only about
one hundred slain and two hundred made prisoners;"
but he notes, that it may have its due influence, how he
got this calculation from " those who were of the victori-
ous party." *

^ Froissart's narrative is the authority for this account of the battle
of Otterbum. It shows so accurate a knowledge of persons and places,
and gives the sequence of events so distinctly, that by internal evidence
it would commend itself to belief as rendered from the information of
eyewitnesses by one who had carefully questioned them and had a
peculiar capacity for getting at the truth of such affairs. Then the
author tells us : " I was nwde acquainted with all the particulars of
this battle by knights and squires who had been actors in it on each
side. There were also \%nth the English two valiant knights of tb«
Bounty of Foix, whom I had the go<Kl fortune to meet at Ortb^ th«

364 ROBERT II.

That there was a memorable slaughter in this affair — a
slaughter far beyond the usual proportion to the numbers*
engaged— cannot be doubted : nor was there ever blood-
shed more useless for the practical ends of war. It all
came of the capture of the Percy's pennon. The Scots
might have got clear off with all their booty ; the English
forgot all the precautions of war when they made a mid-
night rush on a fortified camp without knowledge of the
ground or the arrangements of their enemy. It was for
these specialties that Froissart admired it so. He saw in
it a fight for fighting's sake — a great passage at arms in
which no bow was drawn, but each man fought hand to
hand ; in fact, about the greatest and bloodiest tournament
he had to record. Hence his narrative is ever interrupted
with bursts of admiration as his fancy contemplates the
delightful scene raised before it. He is eloquent, too, on
the knightly generosity and chivalrous courtesy shown on
both sides, and especially on that which had the best
opportunity of being generous — the victorious. To con-

year after this battle had been foujjht : their names were Sir John d«
Chiteauneuf and John de Canteron. On my return from Foix I met
likewise at Avignon a knight and two squires of Scotland of the party
of Earl Douglas. I'hey knew me again from the recollections I
brought to their mind of their own country ; for in my youth I, the
author of this history, travelled all through Scotland, and was full
fifteen days resident with William, Earl of Douglas, father of Earl
James, of whom we are now speaking, at his Castle of Dalkeith, five
miles distant from Edinbui*gh. Karl James was then very young, but
a promising youth, and he had a sister called Blanche. I had my
information, therefore, from both parties, who agree that it was the
hardest and most obstinate battle that was ever fought. This I readily
believed, for the English and Scots are excellent men-at-arms, and
whenever they meet in battle they do not spare each other." — Ch.
cxxvi. This passage is from Johnes's translation, which the Author
has generally found it convenient to use. The passages in the text,
however, are, with the spelling modernised, from the translation by
Lord Bemers. If he was in general leu accurate than Johnes, his
instincts as a military commander seem to have helped him to more

{precision in rendering descriptions of actual fighting, and there may
)e something in his having lived so much nearer to the time. The
editor of the 1844 edition of Johnes's translation gives in a note, to
help his text, the account of the battle of Otterbum from Berneri*s
translation.

BATTLE or OTTERBURN, 1388. 365

vince all who fead his narrative that he is right in the
eulogies he bestows, he gives some narratives of persona!
adventure among the combatants. These arc very amus-
ing as episodes and anecdotes, but would be spoilt by
removal from their own proper place in Froissart's nar-
rative.^ The chivalrous nature of the battle had its charm
for the popular minstrels of the day as well as for the
courtly historian. It was commemorated in those old
songs of Percy and Douglas, of which Sir Philip Sidney
said that when he heard the singing of them by some
poor " blind crowder" he was '* moved more than with a
trumpet/' Besides the ballads which commemorate the
battle of Otterbum by name, the still more popular and
renowned ballads of the Chevy Chase bring out the same
narrative of events, with only a little more of the nunstrel's
licence.'

The battle of Otterbum has this much significance in
history, that it marks the fading from the defenders of

^ The war hail hitherto been far too lerious a matter to encourage
indulgence in superfluous diitplays of chivalry. Bruce^s affair with De
Bohun no doubt had a dasn of the chivalrous in it, but it was an
application of the fantastic usages to a serious object, which it accom-
plished. Occasionally there came out smaller manifestations of this
spirit. Between the oattle of Bannock burn and the Treaty of North-
ampton, Norham Castle was often attacked by the Scots in their
fugitive raids, and was considered a post of great danger. For that
reason it came under the special notice of a knight named Sir William
Marmion, who had been endowed by the lady of his devotions with a
helmet crested with bright gold, which it was his duty as a true knight
to display in the most dangerous ground he could find. On consid-
eration, ne decided for Korham. The governor. Sir I'homos Gray,
humoured him, and offered him his proper opportunity. He said ne
knew what his visitor had come for ; it was to win renown for his
lady-love's gift, the golden htlmti—vctis y tstn venun thevaler erraunt
fur /aire eel healme estre eonut* Gray good-naturedly put him in
front of a sortie, promising to support him and rescue him dead or
alive— micht he be forsaken of Gou if he did not. The knight of the
golden helmet charged the Scots accordingly. He was unhorsed and
evilly entreated, but Gray kept his promise and charged to the rescue.
1'he golden-headed knif^nt was able to join in the charge which drove
the besiegers off, and accomplished one of the minor successes of the
long contest. The story is told by Gray himself in his Scalacronica,
14a

< In one of the versions of Chevy Chase, attributed to Richard

366 ROBERT II.

Scotland of the dread of immediate absolute conquest by
England. It is like the inhabitants of a besieged city
takmg to their natural courses when the immediate danger
is over. The Scots could now afford to play at war with
that enemy which had given them so much of its serious
business.

The dangers of the small invading army were not at an
end when Percy's force was driven back. These, in their
retreat to Newcastle, met the Bishop of Durham advancing
at the head of ten thousand men. When they thought the

Sheale, a bard of the sixteenth century, the identity with Otterbum is
noticed : —

" Thii was the hontynge of the Cheviat,
l*hat dear begane thii spurn,
Old men that knowen the grounde well enoughe
Call it the battell of Otterbum."

See ** Hunting of the Cheviat, or the ancient ballad of Chevy Chase,"
in Percy's Relicjues.

In this, and in its more modem shape, as it will be found in the
Elegant Extracts and other collections, the ballad sinks the orimnal
cause of the quarrel — a raid for plunder. It gets the more chivalrous
origin of a defiant hunting in tne enemy*s forest. The nationalities
are inverted too, and it is the Percy who invades Scotland.

" The stout Earl of Northumberland

A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods

Three summer days to take.
The chiefest harts in Chevy Chase

To kill and bear ewav.
These tidings to Earl Douglas came

lu Scotland where he lay."

In the changes to which traditional poetry is subjected, Chevy Chase
connects itself with the Cheviot Hills ; but the term is evidently a
yariation or corruption of e/i€vaucMe, which in the Norman French of
England meant the sort of plundering expedition now better known
by its Scots name of "raid." Thus in a minute of the English
Council the usual invasions by the Scots borderers are called *' Inva-
sions, arsures, chevauch^s, et attemptati." — Foedera. In France it
applied to equestrian movements of a more dignified character — as to
judicial journeys or circuits. One of the French meanings, however,
is cognate to the English: "Le droit de chevauch^e est un ancien
droit seigneurial qui est la m^me. chose que celui que nous appellons
Arri^reban ; droit de faire marcher ses sujets ou vassaux k la guerre ;"
and, *' Devoir chevauch^; c'est 6tre oblig^ de monter h. cheval poui
d^fendre son seigneur f^al dans ses querelles particulieres."— Diet.
de Trevoux.

BATTLE OF OTTERBURN, 1388. 3O7

matter over afterwards, it became disagreeably clear that^
had the bishop's party joined the fugitives in a new attack,
the Scots would to a certainty have been beaten. But
there was still the uncertainty about the possible presence
of a large Scots force, and a general discouraging con-
fusion. While the bishop was discussing the matter with
some of the leaders, his following got gradually mixed up
with the fugitives, and he resolved to join the retreating
body.

Next day he marched against the Scots, but these had
been busy in the mean time strengthening their position
into a thoroughly fortified camp. The enemy, on coming
within two bowshots of them, were received after a manner
so strange that it must be told in the words of the great
chronicler himself: "The Scots have a custom, when
assembled in arms, for those who are on foot to be well
dressed, each having a large horn slung round his neck in
the manner of hunters, and when they blow all together,
the horns being of different sizes, the noise is so great it
may be heard four miles off, to the great dismay of their
enemies and their own delight. The Scots commanders
ordered this sort of music now to be played. The Bishop
of Durham, with his banner, under which were at least ten
thousand men, had scarcely approached within a league of
the Scots when they began to play such a concert that it
seemed all the devils in hell had come thither to join in
the noise, so that those of the English who had never
heard such were much frightened."^

Froissart mentions another peculiarity of the warlike re-
sources shown in this incursion of the Scots — the use by
the unmounted men of a long-shafted battle-axe wielded
by both hands. It was similar in shape to the English
bill, but much larger, and it was afterwards well dreaded
as a formidable weapon in the hands of those trained to
it ; it became known in later times as the Lochaber axe —
a long shaft, with a blade longer than an axe's and shorter
than a sword's, with a hook behind, which might be used
in climbing walls, or perhaps in catching a fugitive.

^Ch. cxxz.

368 ROBERT n.

The bishop's army, which seems to have been in great
part a raw levy, had an opportunity of making a leisurely
and close examination of the position of the Scots, for
these had no force of bowmen, and they could not afford
to leave their position. The English admired the skill
they had shown in fortifying themselves, and justified this
admiration by retiring from the place as impregnable. Its
occupants then speedily went home unmolested, through a
country glad to see them pass northwards without stopping
to do business on the way. The brilliant career of the
small detachment sent eastward cast into shade the march
of the main army along the west, and we only hear that it
returned, whether empty-handed or with a satisfactory
amount of plunder is not recorded Next year there was
another Scots raid across the border, headed by the Earl
of Fife, newly appointed governor of the country. Of it
also no memorable achievements are told, nor are there
any tokens of rejoicing over plunder, for that kind of har-
vest seems to have been for the time exhausted.*

In the same year, 1389, a truce was established between
England and France. It was accepted by Scotland, and
was carried down by renewals to the year 1399.* It came
to cheer the last days of the old king, who left the character

^ The reiteration of these plundering expeditions can iiardUr convey
a pleasant impression to readers removed from the influence of'^national
partialities : of all methods of warfare they are no doubt among the
most cruel and wasteful They are utterly opposed to that more
generous and enlightened principle of modem war which avoids mere
mischief and injurv to the private citizen, but endeavours to paralyse
the enemy by dealmg great blows against the centre of his political or
military power. Yet these raids or forays are ever the way in which
a weak state will deal with a strong one in a death-struggle^- that is,
when the war is not one to punish some lasult or injury, but a deter-
mined effort for conquest and national annihilation. To the great
power complaining 01 such acts this will ever be the answer of the
small one : If you wish to keep your people from harm at our hands,
let us alone — give over jrour effort to enslave us. The same course
was pursued after the middle of the nineteenth century by the Southern
States of America. Their incursions got the old Scots name of raids,
and have met with signal approval. Scots raids of the fourteenth
century were in a cause surely as sound.

• Fcedera, vii. 623 et seq. ; Rot Scot., ii. 98.

CLAN BATTLE ON THE NORTH INCH, 1396. 369

of a peaceful ruler over a quarrelsome people. Robert IL
died in 1390.

He was succeeded by his eldest son. John was the
name given to him in baptism, yet so hateful had the
words ** King John '' become, as the title of him who
bore the odium of selling the national independence, that
it was deemed a prudent policy to give the new king the
popular name of Robert, although that was held by his
younger brother. Accordingly he was crowned as Robert
in. The nine years' suspension of war with England
gave him for a time a peaceful reign. The general quiet
was only disturbed by family quarrels, and by some esca-
pades of the Celtic races of the north and west, which
will have to be afterwards referred to in taking up the
thread of events concerning these districts. In the year
1396, however, there came to pass a tragic occurrence, in
which some of the Highlanders were the actors — an occur-
rence which connects itself neither with their history nor
with that of Lowland Scotland, but stands apart by itself.

On the 23d of October 1396, on the beautiful diluvial
meadow by the Tay called the North Inch of Perth, lists
were staked off as for a great tournament, and benches
and stands were erected for spectators. A vast crowd
gathered there of all ranks, from the king himself down-
wards. The spectacle which drew them together was a
battle between two bodies of the wild Highlanders, thirty
on each side. They were to fight in their native fashion,
with axes, swords, or bows, having no defensive armour.
The chronicles mention an odd incident in the arrange-
ments. A combatant on one side losing heart swam the
Tay and made off. The question then came how the
equality of numbers was to be made up. A common arti-
ficer of Perth — a little man, but strong and able at his wea-
pon — agreed to fill the empty place for a small fee, and a
life provision should he survive after having done his work
well ; and the bargain was accepted. Though but briefly
noted as a piece of eccentric courage in a person of hum-
ble condition, this incident has come up so often and in
so many shapes in literature and tradition, that the story
of the Gow-chrom, or Crooked Smith, as he is sometimes

VOL. 11. 2 A

370 ROBERT III.

called, is as familiar as many leading events in history.
Such a contest would make a lively variation on the mon-
otony of the tournament, with its stately etiquettes and
regulated restraints. It was the nature of the beings
brought together to fly at each other like wild-cats and
kill in any way they could The affair was as bloody as
heart could desire. Of one side but ten remained, all
wounded ; of the other, but one.

The object of this exhibition has produced much specu-
lation. It has been said that there was a standing rivalry
and contest between two clans, or groups of clans, which
kept the Highlands in ceaseless discord and confusion ;
that all efforts to bring them to terms had failed ; and that
some wise counsellors, looking perhaps to the precedent
of the Horatii and Curiatii as told by Livy, had suggested
the plan of putting their quarrel to the ordeal of an equal
combat, at the end of which the clansmen of the beaten
warriors were peacefully to accept of their old enemies as
their masters and come under the banner of their chiefs.
One^art of sucli a project was certain to be fulfilled. Set
face to face, the enemies would fight each other to the
utmost ; but if it was believed that the second part had
any chance of holding, the statesmen of the day must
have been ignorant to an incredible degree of tlie High-
land character as it comes out in later history. For a
whole race to submit to the ordeal of battle would imply
the very highest devotion to those rules of chivalry which
were an extravagant fashion in all the countries under the
Norman influence, but were utterly unknown to the High-
landers, who submitted when they must submit, and re-
taliated when they could. That such an adjustment could
be effected among them is about as incredible as a story
about a parliamentary debate in Persia or a jury trial in
Timbuctoo. On the other hand, if the mere death of so
many Highlanders was the object, it was to be accom-
plished on but a small scale, unless the combatants were
all chiefs or leaders of some sort. So little eminence,
however, appears to have been among them, that even
the men who are said to have been the heads of the quar-
rel on either side are not identified by Celtic antiquaries

CLAN BATTLE ON THE NORTH INCH, 1396. 37 1

with anything like certainty as belonging to eminent or
even known Highland families.^ They cannot be fitted
into any of the genealogies, accurate or fabulous, to be
found in the peerages and family histories, nor has any
one been able to show the districts over which they ruled-
The slaughter of some fifty or sixty of the Celtic cate-
rans was no doubt so far desirable, though later Scots
governments found ways of accomplishing such a service
on a very different scale. One cannot help thinking,
however, that the chief motive for countenancing and
stimulating such a passage of arms was the idea of a spec-
tacle, origmal and exciting in its character — something
partaking of the old gladiatorial contests of the Romans,
and of the tournaments of chivalry. The allusions by the
chroniclers to the vast multitude, including distinguished
foreigners from England and France, who assembled on
the North Inch as spectators, encourages the supposition
that the affair was a great spectacle ; and looking at in this
light, it was certainly an eminent success.

^ The Scotichronicon calls the pestiferous caterans of the mountains,
'* Scheabe^ et suos consaniniinarios qui Clankay, et Cristi Tonson ac
suos qui Clanquhele, diceoantur." In the Registrum Moreviense
(382), the quarrel is said to be between two ** Parentalte, Clanhay
[not Kay], and Clanqwhwle." In the Extracta e variis Cronicis Scocie
(203), it stands: ''Unus Sceauchbeg caput Clancay vocatus, alius
Cristi Johneson caput Clanqwele dictus." In Wyntoun we have :—

" lliay thre icore ware clannvi twa,
Clahjrnnhi Qwhewyl, and Clachinyha.
or thir twa kynnyi ware thay men
'I'hretty again thretty then,
And thare thai had than chiftanyi twa—
Scha Ferqwharis sone wei anc of thay,
The tother Criity Johneione."

— B. ix. ch. 17.

All that the editor of Wyntoun, David Macpherson, who professed to
have a eood deal of Highland lore, has to say to this is : '* These
names, though doubtless somewhat corrupted by Wyntoun himself,
may furnish a clue whereby those who are versant in Higliland genea-
logies may yet settle the dispute which has lately been agitated for the
property of these ferocious chiefs and their sanguinary followers, and
trace them to their true families" (ii. 518). Wyntoun, who from his
I'riory in Loch Leven might have taken a walk to see the show, say 4
nothing about deep political motives, but simpl;^ describes the battle^
and calls it a ''selcouth thing," — an amazing thing.

372 ROBERT III.

At the establishment of the truce of 1389, the contest
with England had gone on for very nearly a hundred years,
with no longer interruption than the uneasy truce of seven
years in 1347. It was natural to find that a people trained
through several generations in warfare would not take
readily to the ways of peace, and at once convert the spear
into the pruning-hook. The bulk of the able-bodied men
throughout the country were banded together under the
territorial lords as their military commanders, and the
organisation thus framed did not at once come to pieces.
Since they were not called against an enemy abroad, they
took to mischief at home. It is always so when a sud-
den peace disbands an army, unless it is to be absorbed
into a strong and thoroughly organised civil government.
AVhen a war between despotic i)owers ceases, the evil takes
the shape of a dispersal of disorganised marauders; in
Scotland, distributed as power was at that time, it took
more generally the shape of separate bands organised
under territorial chiefs, all quarrelling with each other
and doing mischief to their unprotected neighbours. It
required a strong hand to check such destructive influ-
ences, and that was not to be found in the Court of King
Robert. He was a man of peace like his father, infirm in
body and in will, easily entreated by the designing, and
preferring his personal ease and peace to his duty. Then
his eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay, known only for his
profligacy, was as ready to sacrifice everything to active
pleasure and sensual enjoyment as his father to indolence.
The next in command, the king's brother, known as the
Duke of Albany, was a man of ability and courage, but
none of his resources went to the benefit of the public —
all were retained to further his deep-laid plots for his own
aggrandisement.

Under such political conditions, the burghal and indus-
trious peasant population suff"ered fearfully. The wretched-
ness of the people cries out to us in the present day
through the vehement lamentations of the chronicles, that
law and justice and mercy were unknown throughout the
land, and that the strong took and tyrannised, and the
weak had to endure. It all stood in melancholy contrast

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY, 1390-98. 373

with the strong rule of Robert Bruce and Randolph, and
with the traditions of the peaceful and plentiful days of
good King Alexander, before the ambition of the Planta-
genet kings had brought on the calamities of Scotland.
Indeed, Scotland during the long truce seems one of the
best examples to be found of the social condition admired
by a recent poet as ** the good old rule," " the simple plan,*'

** That they should take who have the power,
A.nd they should keep who can."

At length the cry of the nation reached and was echoed
by the Estates in Parliament. These met in 1398, and
left an example of the blessed influence of such assem-
blages, even in a rude and imperfect shape, provided they
contain representatives of varied interests. In this assem-
bly were those who had been the most flagrant and
powerful transgressors, yet the Parliament collectively
emphatically denounced the evils of the day, and sought
to lind a remedy for them. Nor did they spare any one
who could have checked the mischief. The Estates had
not discovered that formula which deprives a monarch of
personal power under the pretence of exemption from
responsibility — the maxim that the king can do no wrong.
They began by a declaration that the misgovernment of
the realm, and the failure to enforce the law, must be im-
puted to the king and his officers. If he can charge the
default against his officers, however, he has an opportunity
of doing so. Let him accuse them before the council of
Parliament who will hear what they have to say, and then
judge.^

^ It has already been mentioned that those who, in the reign of the
laterStewarts, edited the old laws and state papers of Scotland, tampered
with them to render them conformable to the court notions of the day.
Of this Sir John Skene's rendering of the resolution of 1398 is a signal
example. The three communities of " the kynryk gadderit in general
council,*' "Quwhare it is deliveryt that the mysgovemance of the
reaulm, and the defaut of the kepyng of the common law, sulde be
imput to the kyng and his officers. And tharfore dfe it lyks our
lonie the kynge til excuse his defautes he may at his lyking genre calle
h^s officeres to the quhilks he hes giffyn commissione, and accuM
thame in presence of his consaile. And thair answcre herde, the

374 ROBERT III.

The Parliament then — on the preamble that it is welt
seen and kenned that their lofd the king, for sickness o(
his person, may not travail to govern the realm, nor re-
strain trespassers and rebellers — ^judge it fit that his eldest
son and heir, the Duke of Rothesay, should act as his
lieutenant, with his full sovereign powers, limiting the lieu-
tenant's commission to three years, and appointing a
council named in the Act for his guidance. He is to
swear, as the king his father swore at his coronation, to
preserve undamaged the privileges of the Church, to cause
the laws and lovable customs of the realm to be kept to
the people : he is to restrain and punish masterful mis-
doers, and especially to restrain cursed men and heretics,
and those that are thrust furth of the Church. There fol-
lows a significant provision, that the due execution of his
office shall not be hindered by countermandments from
the king, "as somewhile has been seen;" and if any
such countermandments be issued, they are to be ineffec-
tual.

It is further provided that all his acts as sovereign shall
be minuted, with the day and place, and the names of
those counsellors who are present at the transaction, in
order that they may be responsible to punishment by the
Parliament if they have transgressed. There are provi-
sions for strengthening the executive in bringing offenders
to justice, — B, suggestive item of which is the dealing with
those who put the officers of the crown at defiance, and
cannot be brought to justice. These, after due warning

consaile sal be redy to judge their defautes.*' — Act. Pari, i. (Rob,
III.) 2IO. This, as primed in the reign of James VI., stands :
** Quhere it is delivered, that the misgovemance of the realme, and
the default of the keiping of the common law, sould be imput to the
king's ofliciairs ; therefore, gif it likes our lord the king, he may at
his liking gar call his officiaires to quhom he hes given commission,
and accuse them in the presence of his counsell. And their answer
being hard the counsall sail be readie to judge their defauts." The
mutilation destroys the logical as well as the constitutional tenor of
the document The reason for permitting the king to accuse his offi-
cers — namely, that he might exonerate himself— being withdrawn,
leaves nonsense. The provisions that follow are not printed ia
Skene*s edition.

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS, 1 398. 37 S

that they are wanted, and proper certificates that they have
got sufficient notice to appear, are to be proclaimed rebels
to the crown, or outlawed, and so be liable to the forfeit-
ure of their estates.

This Parliament was conspicuous by a new title of dig-
nity appearing on its rolls — that of Duke. It was limited
at the beginning to the blood-royal. The new regent
appeared as Duke of Rothesay, his uncle as Duke of
Albany.

The Scots borderers watched the termination of the
truce in 1399, that they might get loose on England like
hounds let off the leash. It was asserted on the part of
England, indeed, that they did not wait for the conclu-
sion.^ Ten years of peaceful husbandry had prepared a
harvest for them, and they swept it off in the old way —
the English borderers retaliating by an invasion of the
Lowlands. The political aspect again became menacing
for Scotland. The conditions which rendered peace al-
most a necessity for England had ceased with a revolu-
tion. It was no longer Richard II., but Henry IV., who
reigned ; and he began his reign by a great invasion of
Scotland.

It is announced by a curious change in the tenor of the
diplomatic pliraseology applied to Scotland. On the 14th
of August 1400, it is no longer " our adversary of Scotland "
that is addressed, but the King of England sends to the
King of Scotland greeting. The purport of the appeal
explains the change of nomenclature. The absolute con-
quest and annexation of Scotland had been the tenor of
all English transactions since Baliol's resignation of the
crown in 1296, excepting for a short period beginning
with the peace of Northampton. Now the King of Eng-
land was to be content with the power of lord superior,
and acknowledged Robert III. to be King of Scotland as

^ It is amusing enough in the solemn pages of the Foedera to find
literally the twm de guerre^ or pugnacious nickname, of one of the
border chiefs printed in large letters. It is an instruction to keep
him in safe custody : *' Quod capitaneis et aliis, qui Ricardum Rother-
ford militem et fihos ejus ac Johannem TumbuU OUT WVTH SWEKP
et alios capitaneos . • . ceperunl." — Foedera, viiL 162.

376 ROBERT III.

his vassal. Desirous to bring to a conclusion the wars
and misfortunes which the rebellions of previous kings of
Scotland had caused, he intimates his intention of march-
ing to Eklinburgh, and there, on the 2 2d of August,
receiving the liege homage of King Robert Lest any
surprise should be felt at such an injunction, he reminds
King Robert how this question of vassalage had been
settled in the instance of Locrinus, the son of Brutus, and
how this fundamental precedent had been followed by
many others. Upwards of a century had now elapsed
since the time when Edward I. provided, in his court of
lord paramount over Scotland, a treasury of instruction in
feudal practice for the benefit of archaeologists and jurists.
Some changes were likely to come, either for better or for
worse, in so many years ; and it is likely that the feudalist
might find the practice of the year 1400 to have degene-
rated from that of 129 1. At all events, it was different.
Beside King Henry's requisition to his vassal the king, is
a document which certainly King Edward's feudalists
would not have prepared for him. A duplicate of the
requisition to the King of Scots is addressed to the dukes,
earls, and other proceres of Scotland. They are directed
to persuade their king to do his duty to his lord superior,
and if they are unsuccessful in this effort, to come and
offer the lord superior their own homage. There is a
third stage in this eccentric feudal process. Three knights
and three esquires of England are appointed to intimate
the requisition, like officers of the law executing a citation.
They were to endeavour to serve the writ personally on
the said King of Scots and all his proceres^ if they could
conveniently do so. Should they fail in personally serv-
'ng the King of Scots and the feudatories of his crown
with the writs, they were instructed to proclaim their sub-
stance, in a loud and audible voice, in Kelso, Dryburgh,
Jedburgh, Melrose, Edinburgh, and wherever else they
thought fit. This no doubt was after the form of some
writ used in the English law courts.

Henry was serious, however, and began his reign with
a grand invasion of Scotland. He marched with a large
force as far as Leith. There he renewed the demand of

APOSTASY OF MARCH, 1400-1402. 3;;

homage in a querulous appeal, in which he complained,
not only that his just demands remained unnoticed, but
that the Duke of Rothesay had sent him a defiance to a
passage at arms, with one, two, or three hundred on each
side.^ Rothesay was then acting as Governor of Edin-
burgh Castle, which held out stoutly and effectually
against the English. Albany commanded a large army at
Calder Moor, a few miles distant As he did not offer
battle, it has been suspected that he had no objection to
see Edinburgh Castle fall, and his nephew killed or taken.
Had it not been for what afterwards occurred, however, a
sufficient motive might have been found for his inactivity ;
for the English force was dwindling away under internal
causes of dissolution. It would seem that Henry wished
to make himself popular by the conquest of Scotland, but,
as a new king, was afraid to ask for a supply, and
trusted to the feudal obligations for his army : these gave
him a great force, but were insufficient to hold it together.
He retired with the most bloodless and inoffensive army
that ever entered Scotland, having apparently satisfied
himself that conquest there was a vain dream. Immedi-
ately after his retreat, we find the sovereign of Scotland
losing his rank of king in the English state papers, and
again reduced to the position of " our adversary of Scot-
land."

Yet King Henry's hands were at that time strengthened
by a great desertion from Scotland. The Earl of March,
who vied with the Douglas in holding the largest domains
and the greatest feudal influence in Scotland, solemnly
transferred his allegiance to the King of England. His

^ It is said in some histories that the Prince offered to stake the
issue of the quarrel — the independence of Scotland— on the result of
such a passage at arms. Madcap as he was, however, there is scarcely
authority for this, though he and King Henry seem to have bandied
assurance about a desire to avoid the shedding of Christian blood :
"Idem etiam David, in dictis suis literis, asserit quod, sicut et nosita
ct ipse, desiderat Christiani sanguinis effusionem eviiare, et tamen in
eisdem literis, cum trescentis aut ducentis seu centem nobilibus, se
offert nobiscum pugnaturum, ouasi nobilem sanguinem Christanum
non censeret." This taunt would not have told, had the offer been
to decide the quarrel so, instead of by war. — Foedera, viii. 158.

378 ROBERT III.

was one of the oldest houses in Scotland, yet its allegiance
was not of long standing. His father sheltered Edward
II. in Dunbar Castle when he fled from Bannockburn, and
for a time served Edward III. and Baliol ; and his grand-
father, whom we have met with as one of the competitors
for the crown, was a faithful follower of Edward I. The
Duke of Rothesay was, in 1399, betrothed to Lady Eliza-
beth Dunbar, the Earl's daughter ; yet next year he was
married to Marjory, the daughter of Douglas, the great
rival and feudal enemy of March. This, it is said, drove
him to his change of allegiance. Yet so early as 1393 there
exists a royal letter authorising messengers or ambassadors
to treat both with him and with Douglas for a transfer of
their allegiance to England.^ March engaged for the
allegiance both of himself and his vassals, or subjects
as they are called ; but there is no trace of his having
carried any of them into England. He would naturally
expect that, if there was to be a serious contest between
the two countries, he could hold his own territory on the
borders in allegiance to England ; but the complete aban-
donment of any serious attempts on Scotland threw him
on the bounty of the English king. He had given facili-
ties for the invasion of Scotland, as he held the Castle of
Dunbar; but after Henry's retreat, it was taken by his
rival, Douglas, for Scotland. Although he profited nothing
by the change, however, it fell to him to do his old
country some mischief. In 1402 he headed an English
force, which defeated at Nisbet Moor a few hundred Scots
engaged in a raid into England.

This was followed by a more serious affair in September
of the same year. A considerable army was raised, and
sent into England under Douglas to imitate the great
exploit of his father. He succeeded so far as to reach
Durham, and was returning to Scotland in great confi-
dence, with a rich harvest of plunder. When the rievers
had got as far as Wooler they heard that Hotspur and the
apostate March were coming to meet them with a large
force. They took up their position on a piece of strong

* Foedera, vii. 754.

BATTLE OF IIOMILDON, 1402. 379

ground called Homildon Hill. It is said that Hotspur
was for an instantaneous charge, as at Otterbum, but that
he was stopped by March, who better knew both the
strength and the weakness of a Scots force. Formed as
they were in a compact mass on the hill, the bowmen were
set to play on them, and did so with deadly effect The
tactic of Douglas should have been, after Bruce's at
Bannockburn, to charge the archers with cavalry. Though
this arm existed in abundance, however, it was not used
till too late. The Scots leader, indeed, seems to have
lost head, for he allowed his troops to be butchered
around him. So splendid was the English archery, that
Douglas himself, though he wore a coat of mail of notable
excellence, had five arrow-wounds, though none of them
was mortal. A young knight, Sir John Swinton, gained
fame by exhorting his countrymen to charge the enemy,
and at all events die fighting — and he gave example by a
dash on them with a few followers ; but these were insuf-
ficient for the purpose, and were all speedily killed. It
was a complete victory for England, remarkable for the
number of eminent Scots taken or killed. It was entirely
the reverse of Otterbum, both in the result and the
method of attaining it ; for, as Froissart says, there had
been no bow drawn there — at Homildon all the work was
done with the bow, and there was no hand-to-hand
fighting.

It is among things not easily accounted for, that a
people so keenly and practically alive to everything war-
like as the Scots were, should not ere this time have taken
from the repeated punishments they suffered a lesson as
to the strength of that great arm of English armies — the
bowmen. The strength of a Scots army lay in the spear-
men and the axemen. These were terrible in hand-to-
hand conflict, but their enemies had a weapon which cut
them off from their opportunity. It is difficult now to
realise the power of the English bow and cloth-yard shaft.
Much faith was given to the cross-bow, because it was
bent up to its check by placing the foot on the bow and
dragging the string with the hands, so that the strength of
both arma and legs was given to the draAving of it ; but it

380 ROBERT III.

proved a paltry weapon beside the bows drawn by strong
yeomen — ^bows so large that the fitting length was that
which allowed the feathering of the arrow to touch the
ear. Gunpowder had now been for some years in use.
Barbour is supposed to speak of a gim of some kind when
he says the English used " crackys of weir," or cracks of
war, in the affair with the Scots rievers in Weirdale, before
the death of Robert the Bruce. But hitherto in the home
wars the long shaft shot from the upright bow was still the
prevailing missile.

At the time of this unfortunate battle the mind of the
people was excited by a scandalous tragedy. The Duke
of Rothesay, the heir of the crown, had been committed
to a dungeon, which he never left alive, and the rumour
began and gathered force that his dark uncle had murdered
him there. It appears that the young man's escapades
had become more transcendent and troublesome since hLs
marriage. He and Prince Henry of England were, curi-
ously enough, following the same course. Whether or
not one took of the other, each was, as Falstaff says, " a
mad wag with quips and quiddities," some of which were
of a serious nature, since they touched the administration of
justice. There was a good case for restraint, and plans
were laid for effecting this, if not something further. For
some ground or other of offence, the poor prince's brother-
in-law, Douglas, joined Albany in the plot against him,
and they were assisted by a Sir John Ramorny, said to
have been a minister of the prince's pleasures, whom
also he had made an enemy. On the death of the Bishop
of St Andrews, the prince was going to seize and occupy
his castle — whether in pursuance of one of his mad pranks,
or with some serious purpose legal or illegal. He had
got as near his object as Stratht)rrum, a mile or so from the
castle, when he was seized, and carried to the castle or
palace of Falkland. Thence his body was some time
afterwards removed for burial in the monastery of Lin-
dores, and it was given out that he had died from an
attack in the stomach. Public rumour, however, loudly
proclaimed that he had been murdered ; and when it was
msisted that no one had laid hands on him or done hira

DEATH OF ROTHESAY, 1402. 381

any violence, it was said, that might be true, yet had he
been murdered by tlie cruellest of all methods — starvation.
There was a parliamentary inquiry into the affair. This
was not in the shape of a trial for a crime, but of an in-
quiry for the sake of clearing up doubts and rumours.
The conclusion is set forth in an equivocal form tending
to strengthen suspicion. It is declared that the young
prince died by the visitation of Providence, and not other-
wise.^ For his capture and detention, and for his death
in the manner so described — that is, by the visitation
of Providence — Albany, Douglas, and their assistants are
indemnified, and all persons are forbidden to circulate
false and calumnious rumours against them.^ By Rothe-
say's death Albany regained his old office of governor. To
clear to him the way to the throne, however, would have
required more crimes or calamities ; for the king had yet
a son — afterwards James I. — and three daughters.

In the course of the border quarrels, which hardly ever
ceased in the intervals between the truces, the Percys
brought a large force northwards, and occupied it for a
noticeable period in the siege of a private laird's peel or
tower, called Cocklaws — a siege which proved unsuccess-
ful, though the force employed in it seemed preposter-
ously above the object to be gained. It was suspected,
and not without reason, that the Percys had some other
motive than the taking of a border laird's castle or strong
house, and that they professed to be carrying war into
Scotland that they might have an opportunity of plotting
with Governor Albany to help them in the insurrection
they were going to raise against King Henry. They had

1 ** Ab hac luce, divina Providentia et non alitcr mi{;rasse clino*
scitur."

" Act. Pari., i. (Rob. III.) 22a It must be remembered that the
accusation rests only on an assertion in the Scotichronicon and the
chronicles founded on it. Wyntoun says nothing of it, though he
pathetically laments the young prince's death (ix. 23).

It may be worth noting that starvation was one of the ways in which
the Lancastrian party were accused of having disposed of Richard II.
just at the same time. A kind of epidemic spirit sometimes influences
accusations of crime.

382 ROBERT III.

been among the chief abettors of his advance to the
throne ; yet, whether it was that they did not think them-
selves sufficiently rewarded for their eminent services, or
that they had some deep project in design, it is certain
that, within three years of their settling him on the throne,
they came very near to casting him down from it. They
were in secret alliance with Owen Glendower, who headed
so effectual an effort of the Welsh to regain their old
nationality, that for a time he so completely defied Eng-
land as to be actually King of Wales. Percy released
Douglas and other Scots captives taken at Homildon, and
this was done in defiance of a royal order which, for some
particular reason, required that none of the prisoners taken
in that battle should be ransomed.

Douglas collected a force and marched into England.
We enter here upon historic ground, the scenery of which
has been made familiar to all the world, as rendered by
Shakespeare ; but it is on the English side that he has
taken possession of it. We are not bound to inquire, in
dealing with Scotland, how far his picture is accurate,
though we cannot but feel the charm of that energetic
spirit of chivalry with which he has filled the character
of Douglas. He and Percy, as is well known, were van-
quished in the hard-fought battle of Shrewsbury. Albany
had then collected perhaps the largest army ever raised in
Scotland, and marched to the border professedly to raise
the siege of Cocklaws. But its assailants were otherwise
employed — he found the tower in its natural loneliness.
'J'his was accounted for by immediate news of the battle
of Shrewsbury. Albany, if he intended to take part in it,
was too late, and he had nothing for it but to disperse his
army.

He was at that time trying how he could bring to work
against King Henry an influence of another kind. It was
reported on authority that Richard II., the deposed King
of England, had died a natural death soon after his
deposition. It was believed by many opponents of the
l^ncaster dynasty that he had been murdered. From
Scotland a rumour went forth that he had been seen in
the far-off dominions of Donald of the Isles. According

ALBANY'S GAME, 1404-19. 38J

to one form of the story, he was recognised by a noble
1 rish lady — a member of that house of Bysset which was
driven from Scotlstnd, on account of the death of the Earl
of Athole, some hundred and sixty years before. By an-
other account he was recognised by a court jester. The
accounts agree on one point, that be repudiated the illus-
trious origin imputed to him. Albany, however, took
him in hand, and treated him as the exiled monarch of
England. ^Vhether or not he was what others thus insisted
on counting him, he seems to have been a poor half-witted
creature, incapable of doing anything for himself or per-
sonally helping the policy for which he was used. He died
in 141 9, and was buried in the church of the Dominican
Friars in Stirling.^

Entries have been found in the chamberlain's accounts
connected with the cost of supporting King Richard of
England. They run up a score of arrears, and show
that Albany, as governor, entered a claim against the
exchequer, inasmuch as he was out of pocket for the sup-
port of this illustrious exile. The business-like character
of these entries is supposed to prove that Richard II. of
England lived several years in Scotland, and died there.*
They prove, however, only what needed no proof, that
Albany, the governor, had in his possession a man whom
he treated as Richard II. of England. If it was a falsity
and imposition, he was not likely to tell this to the scribes
who made up the chamberlain's accounts.

It has been observed as significant that the English
Government did not, in this as in other instances of the
starting of a pretender, make any demands either that the
man should be given up or the pretensions proffered in his
name withdrawn. There was entire silence on the part of
England. But before drawing any absolute conclusion
from this, we would require to know more of the intrica-

* The inscription, beginning ** Anglia Ricardus jacet hie Rex ip^e
sepultus," will be found in the Extracta ex Cronicis Scocie, p. 221.

' Historical Reniarks on the Death of Richard II., by P. F.
Tytler. See Tracts, Legal and Historical, by John Riddell, who
professes to identify the man who was made to act the part of the
dead king.

384 ROBERT III.

cies of the affair, and especially of the guilty secrets that
might come to light by stirring it. What if the substantial
evidence that Richard could not be alive in Scotland were
that he had been murdered in Pontefract? Then the
imposition, if such it was, had no active shape. Henry
might well wait until his adversary brought this king on
the board, to make his own move. We must be content
to accept of the affair as one of the unsolved mysteries of
history. The populace of London were, we know, invited
to behold the body of King Richard, publicly shown to
them in St Paul's Cathedral. Thus the statecraft of the
times leaves us the alternative, either that Henry of Lan-
caster produced a spurious dead Richard in St Paul's, or
that Albany kept a spurious live Richard in Scotland.

Whatever Henry may have apprehended from Albany's
game, fortune gave him wherewith to play against it King
Robert's remaining son James, a youth fourteen years old,
was to be sent to the Court of Scotland's ally, France, to be
protected and educated. With a suitable attendance, he
sailed from the Forth in March 1405. Off Flam borough
Head their vessel was met and captured by an English
armed ship. This occurred while one of the truces with
Scotland was yet unexpired, but it was useless to argue
with the English king against his keeping possession of
his prize. The opportunity of kidnapping a royal person-
age was a temptation which scarce any monarch of that
age had virtue to resist. There was a strong opinion, too,
that the act would not be heavily avenged by the prevail-
ing powers in Scotland; indeed, it was suspected that
Albany had given hints, if not more than hints, how the
capture might be effected. Little more than a year after-
wards—on 13th April 1406 — King Robert died, after a
harmless but profitless reign. It was believed that the
misfortunes of his family hastened his end.

385

CHAPTER XXVII.

NARRATIVE TO THE DEATH OF JAMES I.

ACCESSION OF JAMES I., A CHILD, AND CAPTIVE IN ENGLANl
REGENCY OP ROBERT OF ALBANY— BURNING OF RESEBY, AN ENG-
LISHMAN CHARGED WITH HERESY — THE CELTIC POPULATION OF
THE HIGHLANDS AND THEIR RULERS — FINAL STRUGGLE FOR
SUPREMACY BETWEEN HIGHLANDS AND LOWLANDS — THE BATTLE
OF HARLAW — ITS HISTORICAL INFLUENCE — THE INVASION OF
ENGLAND, CALLED THE FOOL RAID— DEATH OF REGENT ROBERT.
AND SUCCESSION OF HIS SON MURDOCH — THE YOUNG KING OF
SCOTS AT THE ENGLISH COURT— HOW TRAINED AND TENDED
THERE — HIS MARRIAGE — ^THE FRENCH ALLIANCE — SCOTS AUXIL-
IARY FORCE SENT TO FRANCE — THEIR LOSSES, SERVICES, AND
REWARDS — RETURN OF THE KING TO SCOTLAND — PREROGATIVE
NOTIONS BROUGHT WITH HIM FROM ENGLAND — HIS DEALING
WITH THE REGENT AND THE HOUSE OF ALBANY— CONTEST WITH
THE HIGHLANDS — FRENCH CONNECTION AND ALLIANCES — ENG-
LAND'S COMMAND OF THE NARROW SEAS USED AGAINST ROYAL
VISITORS BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND — SERIOUS ASPECT
OF HOME POLITICS — ORGANISATION AGAINST KING JAMES — HIS
UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF IT — THE COURT AT PERTH— MURDER OF
KING JAMES THERE.

The death of King Robert had no immediate influence on
the country further than a change of name in the head of
the state. The young prince was acknowledged as King
James, while his uncle Albany continued to govern the
kingdom.^ There is little of moment to record until the
year 1408, when there befell an event leaving a painful

* Wyntoun tells us that a Parliament held at Perth in June acknow-
ledged the succession of King James, and continued Albany's regency
(B. ix. ch. 26) ; but we have no record of the proceedings of that
Parliament.

VOL. II. 2 B

386 REGENCY OF THE ALBANYS.

impression. There came into the country, it is said, for
refuge from persecution, an Englishman named John
Reseby, a follower of Wycliffe. He was tried by an eccle-
siastical council, and, being convicted of forty heresies,
was given over in the usual manner to the ci^il power, by
which he was put to death by burning at the stake. Of
the inquiry conducted by the churchmen there is of course
no record, and nothing more is known to us of the tra-
gedy beyond the story told by Walter Bower, the contin-
uator of Fordun. But as Bower was a dignified clergy-
man — the Abbot of Inchcolm — the method in which he
deals with the event is itself of interest. Of course the
punishment of the heretic receives his high approval.
Though he utters a long and vehement censure on the
poor man's errors, he fails to make us acquainted with the
substance of any of the forty items of heresy excepting
one — the denial that the Pope is the vicar of Christ. The
abbot's angry tirade is otherwise taken up with the Scrijv
tural passages against presumption, and the substitution
of human for divine institutions, having in this a consider-
able resemblance to the numerous attacks made in later
times on " the apostasy of Rome." Some practical points
of interest are visible through his declamation. He tells,
with an evident sensation of horror, that the opinions and
the books of Wycliffe are entertained by several " Lol-
lards " in Scotland, but in extreme secrecy, by the insti-
gation of the devil working on those to whom stolen
waters are the sweetest. He observes of those in whom
the doctrine of this wicked school takes root, that they
seldom or never are restored to the bosom of the faith ;
and he, the author, had but rarely known — if indeed he
ever had known — any such in Christian manner go to
sleep in the Lord.

The truces with England continued off and on, the
Scots borderers, without much respect for them, gradually
pressing out the English occupancy, which still lingered
in the counties nearest to England. Jedburgh Castle was
taken, and was destroyed as having been more serviceable
to the English invaders than to Scotland. The town of
Roxburgh was destroyed, but the castle remained in

HIGHLAND HISTORY, 1 384-14 ii. 387

English hands. Fast Castle was one of the recoveries.
This remote fortress, perched on a rock jutting from St
Abb's Head into the German Ocean, after the country
round it was recovered by the Scots, had remained in the
possession of its English captain, who, thus isolated, set
up on his own account, levying contributions or taking
prey both by land and sea.

The year 141 1 was refiowned in Scotland by a great
battle, arising out of dangers arid difficulties of a new and
special kind. It was a final struggle for supremacy be-
tween the Highlands and the Lowlands, called the battle
of Harlaw. The conditions out of which it arose demand
some explanation. We have seen how Scotland, as the
name of a kingdom, came originally from the Irish Scots,
who colonised the western coast ; and how by degrees, as
the kingdom became consolidated, the descendants of
these western Scots were ever shy and troublesome as
subjects of the King of Scotland, and were sometimes
entirely independent of his rule. They were at one time
swept into that great Norse confederation of maritime
states which included, along with the Shetlands and Ork-
neys, Man and the east of Ireland, all occasionally under
the sway of Norway. We have seen that when this marine
empire was broken up, the Western Highlands of Scotland,
and the islands opposite to their shore, were left a terri-
tory where the Celts predominated so far that their lan-
guage became that of the district, while yet there was a
strong element of Norse blood among the people. After
the reign, as it might be termed, of Somerled, in the
middle of the twelfth century, the command of the district
was partitioned ; and although the chiefs who ruled it had
generally one among them predominant over the others,
there was no distinct state \vith its central government.
Sometimes it is the Lord of the Isles, sometimes the Lord
of Lorn, or of Man, or of Kintyre, that appears to lead.
So we find, in Bruce*s difficulties, that John of Lorn was
among his bitterest enemies, while he got some aid from a
rival chief. During the War of Independence England
naturally looked to the predominating power in these
regions as an ally; and Edward Baliol, when he was

388 REGENCY OF THE ALBANYS,

acting as King of Scotland, made alliances in the same
quarter. Ere Scotland shook off the power of England,
during David II/s reign, these western regions, mainland
and islands, seem to have become consolidated under the
leadership of the Lord of the Isles. One of the last acts
of King David's reign was an invasion — or rather a threat
of invasion — to put an end to his claims of independent
sovereignty, and subject his territories to taxation. He
and a train of followers met King David at Inverness, and
])romised submission to the sovereignty, and to taxation,
as holding lands that were an integral part of Scotland —
promised, in fact, whatever was demanded. The engage-
ments were put into proper feudal form ; but the parch-
ments went for nothing among the Celtic people of those
regions, to whose nature the feudal S3rstem, with its grada-
tions, its strictly limited rights, and its fixed hold on the
soil, was hateful and scarcely comprehensible. Their one
.great craving was for immediate leaders to guide and
command them. Such they found in the descendants of
those Norse warriors who had been their masters of old.
They lived under their chief, and did his bidding, knowing
nothing of the Lowland king's Chapel of Chancery and the
charters thence issuing, which professed to regulate the
use and property of the surface of the earth, according to
the claims of all, from the monarch to the cottar.

The parchment submission to King David thus made
no difference in the power of the Lord of the Isles ; he
was as thoroughly obeyed within his own region after as
before it. He bethought him of exercising the preroga-
tives of a sovereign in the Norman form, and executed
charters to subordinate heads of clans — Macintoshes,
Mackenzies, Macleans, and others — who were to hold
lands of him as their lord paramount, as the King of
Scotland had held domains in England. The alliances
with England were repeated ; and in the great truce be-
tween France and England in 1389, in which the allies of
the high contracting powers were included, Scotland was
a party as the ally of France, and the Lord of the Isles
was a party as the ally of England. So near the time at
present dealt with as the years 1405 and 1408, we have

HIGHLAND HISTORY, 1384-1411. 3S9

commissions from Henry IV. to treat with the Lord of the
Isles, who thus retained his diplomatic position.^ Thus
we have a government claiming dominion, over a district
which only admits of that dominion fugitively, evasively,
and while under pressure, and allies itself with the enemies
of the government which professes to rule over it. AVhen
events occur which are but the natural results of such
political conditions, we are sure to hear of ** disturbances
in the north," or another " rebellion of the Lord of the
Isles," or the necessity for " strong measures " towards
that impracticable chief. On the other hand, arguments
might be found for holding that the Lord of the Isles was
as well entitled to maintain the sovereignty of his west-
em state against the King of the Lowland Scots, as the
Government of Scotland to resist the encroachments of
the King of England ; and that the sole difference between
the two struggles is in the success that fell to the one and
was denied to the other. And, indeed, the answer to such
reasoning can be but in this modified form: The dominion
of the Lord of the Isles was never, like Scotland, a com-
pact state with a Constitution. It uttered no distinct
claim of independent sovereignty to Europe, either through
the universal medium of the Papal Court, or in any other
shape ; and in fact it only showed its independence by
rising against the King of Scots when his hands were tied
or occupied elsewhere.

If ever there had been a Celtic-speaking people in any
part of the country now known as the Lowlands of Scot-
land, the two tongues had now become separate by a
clear line of demarcation. They were equally separated
by incompatibilities and antipathies. The days were long
past when the Celt was a leader in civilisation. The Goth
liad now got far ahead of him. The ways of the two also
differed in this wise, that it became the practice of the one
to till the soil and enrich himself, while it became the
practice of the other to live idly and seize upon the riches

* Fcedera, viii. 418, 527. The Record edition, it may be men-
tioned, stops at the year' 1377: hence the references since that date
are from the two older editions, which have both the same paging.

390 REGENCY OF THE ALBANYS.

of his Lowland neighbour when he could get at them. In
1384 an Act was passed for the suppression of masterful
plunderers, who get in the statute their Highland name of
otteran} By this statute all men might seize caterans and
bring them to the sheriff; and should they refuse to come
to the sheriff, might kill them without having to answer for
the act. This is the first of a long succession of penal and
denunciatory laws against the Highlanders; each, as it
was found to drive them desperate rather than to improve
them, being immediately followed by another, in which
the legislator's ingenuity was tasked to find some project
still more cruel dian any yet adopted.

No doubt there was ample provocation to retaliate on
these mountaineers. They had already given some hints
that they could be put to more dire purpose than the
clearing of a stackyard or driving a herd of cattle. King
Robert's brother, Alexander, was invested with the lord-
ships of Badenoch and Buchan, parts of the inheritance of
the Comyns. Besides Badenoch, with its strong Castle of
Lochindorb, he got other Highland estates, and held the
earldom of Ross in right of his wife. To add to his
power, he was made king's lieutenant over the greater
part of Scotland north of the Forth. He could thus com-
mand a vast Highland following for any purposes he chose
to put it to ; and his selection was such as to earn for him
the title of the Wolf of Badenoch. Among other acts of
tyranny and depredation, he seized on some lands belong-
ing to the Bishop of Moray. For this he was excom^
municated by the bishop. In retaliation, he brought a
body of Highlanders to Elgin, the see of Moray, where
they burned the cathedral, and committed other devasta-
tions. The Church was too powerful to endure this, and
the perpetrator had to make satisfaction before he could
get relief from his excommunication, and the troublesome
civil disabilities following on it. This lord had an illegi-
timate son named Alexander, who afterwards held a con-

* " Qui transierint ut Katherani, comedendo patriam ct consumendo
bona comitatum et capiendo per vim et violenciam bona et victualia."
— ScoU Acts (Rob. II.), i. 186, 187.

HIGHLAND HISTORY, 1384-1411. 391

«picuous place, both in Scotland and France, as Earl of
Mar. Whether or not he obtained any of the Highland
property, he succeeded to his father's propensities and his
influence over the Highlanders. With a large following,
he descended from the Braes of Angus — the eastern slopes
of the Grampians — on a grand plundering expedition
against the agriculturists of the Lowland districts of Angus
and Mearns. The landed gentry of this district hastily
gathered for its defence, and met the invaders on the
banks of the small river Isla. They fought, of course.
The affair was a small one, but sharpened by the hatred
to each other of two races, whose antipathy was all the
bitterer that they were near neighbours and nominally
under the same government. It is the earliest recorded
example of the method of Highland warfare, such as it
continued down to the latest of our civil wars. The
method was a simple rush or bound upon the enemy, and
a reliance on the impetuosity of the blow breaking his
defences. If it failed to do so, the assailants instantly
turned. If strong enough, they might make another
rush ; if not, they would disperse their several ways, and
the war was at an end for the time. In this instance the
rush was successful ; the Lowlanders, mounted men and
foot, were swept before the torrent. A chronicler gives
an instance of the ferocity of the mountaineers. The
Lord Lyndsay, the leader of the Lowland force, on horse-
back, had pinned to the earth with his spear one of
them, who, twisting himself up, with his sword cut the
assailant through all his defences to the bone, and fell
back dead.^ Such was the battle of Gasklune, fought in
the year 1392.

Twelve years aften^^ards, their leader employed his
Highland followers to more effective purpose still, so far
as his own interests were concerned. In the Castle of
Kildrummy, on the Don, lived the Countess of Mar in
her own right- -a widow of a year's standing. Stewart and
his Highlanders stormed the castle, strong as it was, and
made the lady captive. She married her captor, and cer-

^ Wyntoun, ix. 14.

392 REGENCY OF THE ALBANYS.

tain feudal ceremonies were publicly performed, for t!ie
purpose of making it known that the marriage, and the
endowment of her husband with her estates, were acts of
her own free will. The Wolf of Badenoch's illegitimate
son now became Earl of Mar — a great feudal lord, with a
high position in the state. His ambition rose above the
leadership of marauding mountaineers ; and, as we shall
see, like other persons of inferior note who have risen by
unworthy services, he became a zealous represser of those
who had helped him. Early in the fifteenth century the
earldom of Ross fell to an heiress, who retired from the
world, and took the veil. This earldom had grown out of
that Maarmorate north of the Moray Firth which we have
often met with in early centuries as a nearly independent
dominion in the hands of Norsemen. Although an earl-
dom by charter, it still held but loosely of the cro\\Ti.
Donald, the Lord of the Isles, was married to an aunt of
the heiress. He claimed the earldom, which would exactly
fit into his other domains, and make him lord or monarch
of about the half of Scotland. But the very reasons that
rendered the acquisition so desirable to himself, rendered
it the policy of the government to defeat him. On the
ground that he was treated with gross injustice, Donald
resolved on war.

In the summer of 141 1 the agriculturists and burghers
of the North were appalled by a rumour that a body of
marauding Highlanders of unparalleled force — on the
scale, indeed, of a considerable army — ^was coming upon
them to pillage and bum, and conquer Scotland to the
Tay. The force was reputed to amount to ten thousand.
That might not seem .overwhelming to a country which
had dealt with the great English invasions, but it was the
districts exempt from these that were threatened, and the
invasion was, in fact, an attack in the rear. It took the
country by surprise, and there was a hasty gathering of
the gentry, with their tenants, and the burgher force of
the towns. They could muster a small body only, but it
was a high-spirited, efficient force, well armed. It was
commanded by the Earl of Mar, whom we have lately
found in difierent company. He had gained experience

BATTLE OF HARLAW, 141 1. 393

in the French wars, and several of his followers possessed
the same advantage.

Donald and his host came through the northern moun-
tains to Benochie, near the Don, in Aberdeenshire. This
hill is a sort of bastion of the Grampians abutting into the
Lowlands. From its top one can see, towards the west,
mountain after mountain rolling away upwards to the
highest of the Grampians ; on the other side spreads to
the coast a plain as flat as Lincolnshire. Donald kept on
the shoulder of this outstretching hill till he descended on
the flat country, as if reluctant to leave the rough moun-
tain ground to which his followers were accustomed. At
Harlaw, on the flat moor edging up to the rise of the hill,
he met those who had come to guard the entrance to the
low country. The usual rush of the Highlanders was met
by a compact body of men-at-arms and spearmen, who
held their own firmly. The numbers of the Highlanders,
however, enabled them, wasteful as thejr were of life, to
dash, wave after wave as it were, agamst the compact
little body ; and the chances were, that by giving several
lives for each one, the Highlanders might annihilate their
opponents. These held out, however, and Donald had
to retreat; there was no great victory gained over him,
but he was stopped in his career, and that was every-
thing.

So, on the 24th of July in the year 141 1, ended one of
Scotland's most memorable battles. On the face of ordi-
nary history it looks like an aff*air of civil war. But this
expression is properly used towards those who have com-
mon interests and sympathies, who should naturally be
friends and may be friends again, but for a time are, from
incidental causes of dispute and quarrel, made enemies.
The contest between the Lowlanders and Donald's host
was none of this ; it was a contest between foes, of whom
their contemporaries would have said that their ever being
in harmony with each other, or having a feeling of com-
mon interests and common nationality, was not within the
range of rational expectations.

It was a practice in Scotland to favour the heirs o£
those slain in the great national battles against England^

394 REGENCY OF THE ALBANYS.

by exempting them from the feudal taxes on the succes-
sion to their estates, inchiding the rights enjo>'eu by the
superior during the minority of his vassal The records
of northern land rights show that this was extended to
the families bereaved at Harlaw, and that the battle
was even in this formal way treated as a national deliv-
erance.^

The battle of Harlaw has been abundantly celebrated
in northern minstrelsy and tradition. It will be difficult
to make those not familiar with the tone of feeling in
Lowland Scotland at that time believe that the defeat of
Donald of the Isles was felt as a more memorable deliver-
ance even than that of Bannockbum. What it was to be
subject to England the country knew, and knowing did
not like. But to be subdued by their savage enemies of
the mountains opened to them sources of terror of un-
known character and extent. Hence, of the many men
of rank and local mark who fell on that field, the people
of the northern Lowlands long retained affectionate recol-
lection ; and they particularly selected for this tribute
Sir Robert Davidson, the Provost of Aberdeen, the first
affluent burgh which the invaders would have sacked — and
the good knight. Sir Alexander Irvine, whose domains
almost touched the field of battle, and whose square tower
would have been among the first to endure a siege.

The next remarkable event is of a very different charac-
ter — the foundation of the University of St Andrews. Of
the influence of this and other features of intellectual
progress it is proposed to take notice elsewhere. In the
earliest years of the reign of Henry V. there was much
appearance of dispeace between England and Scotland,
but any issues of a critical kind were obviated by Eng-
land's Continental wars. In 141 6 there was profession of
a great expedition from Scotland against England. Rox-

* Tims, in an inquisition concerning the succession of a certain
Andrew of Tuiidelf to his father William, it is found, **Et licet
minoris etatis existet tamen secundum quoddam statutum consilii

Sneralis, ex privilegio concesso heredibus occisorum in bello de
arelaw pro defensione patriae, est hac vice legitimse aetatis." — Regis-
\rum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, i. 215.

DEATH OF THE ELDER ALBANY, 14 1 9. 395

burgh and Berwick were ineffectually attacked ; and the
army returned, after accomplishing so little either for
profit or glory that the expedition got the popular name
of the Fool, or Foolish, Raid.^ On the other hand, a
force under the wardens of the English marches swept
and plundered the southern counties of Scotland, so that
the usual results of a border contest between the two
countries were reversed.

Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany and Regent of Scot-
land, died on the 3d of September 1419, eighty years old.
He has a bad repute in history, which yet is able to set
down nothing against him but suspicion. The heir of the
throne was taken prisoner as if exactly to suit his projects,
yet he could well say to any accuser, " Thou canst not
say I did it." The negotiations for the recovery of the
exile, after he had become King of Scots, all failed ; while
Albany succeeded in getting back his own son Murdoch,
who had been taken at Homildon. He was specially ex-
changed for the young Earl of ^forthumberland. This
was Hotspur's son, who had taken refuge in Scotland
when the family were in extremity. He was treated as a
captive in a sort of retaliation for the detention of King
James. When it was found desirable that he should re-
turn to England and take his place as guardian of the
North, people thought it would have been more in Al-
bany's duty to have exchanged him for his nephew the
king than for his own son ; but it cannot be shown that he
had any choice in this. Henry V. might not be so ready
to part with the one as with the other. Of the great crime
laid against Albany, the murder of Rothesay, we have not
even the assurance that it was asserted at the time by per-
sons who professed to kno*v the particulars. It stands on
the mere general assertion of one set of the chroniclers,
supported by the dubious terms of an act of indemnity.
For the seizure and restraint of the prince, which is not
doubted, and is indeed proclaimed in the Act, there might

* "Cum dedecore ad propria redierunt," &c.; **et ideo vulgaritcr
le />«/-r<i//vocabatur." — Scotichron., xv. 24. Fool (here spelt foul)
was an adjective in old Scots, also in old English.

396 REGENCY OF THE ALBANYS.

be abundance of justification. Here was a madcap )'otith
sporting with the most dangerous and deadly of edge-tools,
bringing royalty into scandal, making enmity and dissatis-
faction by violent outrages and defiance of authorities,
putting grave men in public authority to sore perplexity
between their reverence for royalty and the duties of their
office. It was a great public service that one strong-handed
enough for the purpose should deal with the affair ; and
the act was all the more spirited and commendable that
it bore down all impediment, from the affection of a doting
father who would have let the mischief take its course.
On the whole, had Albany held a greater place in his-
tory, he would have afforded excellent material for one of
those inquirers whose delight it is to reverse popular ver-
dicts, by proving that some name condemned to infamy
belongs to one too great and good for the appreciation of
the ordinary run of mankind.

His office of Governor passed to his son. From analogy
with the practice of the period, we must suppose that this
was done by an Act of the Estates ; but if so no trace of
it remains, and Murdoch appears to succeed to Robert, as
if by hereditary descent, 'in the Governorship of Scotland,
as well as in the Dukedom of Albany. That his father had
arranged all this, and was quietly moulding a dynasty, has
been argued from incidents of small account in themselves,
such as his designing himself on public documents as
Governor of Scotland by the grace of God. It is difficult
to say what chances Murdoch might have had of super-
seding the elder house, had it not been that the struggle
lay with a cleverer man than himself. Exile though he
was. King James made his hand felt in the politics of
Scotland. He was permitted to receive many visits from his
influential subjects, and he made use of his opportimities.
It is easy to suppose that there would be much reluctance
at the Court of England to part with such a captive. No
one could foretell the opportunities that might arise for
turning the possession to use. But, however such con-
siderations may have postponed his restoration, there are
no traces of any ultimate projects to be founded on his
detention.

SUCCOURS TO FRANCE, 142 1. 397

From the first, in referring to him the old offensive
phraseology about " our adversary of Scotland " was
dropped ; and after his father's death, he is ever respect-
fully addressed as "our beloved kinsman the illustrious
King of Scots." In the treatment of his captive guest
Henry V. showed a nature in which jealousies and crooked
policy had no place. Had he desired to train an able
statesman to support his own throne, he could not have
better accompHshed his end. The King of Scots had
everything that England could give to store his naturally
active intellect with learning and accomplishments ; and
he had opportunities of seeing the practice of English
politics, and of observing and discoursing with the great
statesmen of the day, both in England and in France,
where Henry had also a Court He would be sent back
all the abler governor of his own people, and more formid-
able foe to her enemies, for his sojourn at the Court of
England.

It was desired on both sides that before his return he
should ally himself by marriage to the English royal family.
It so happened that his heart was already given to Jane
Beaufort, the daughter of the Earl of Somerset, who was
the brother of Henry IV. She was thus a cousin-german
of the King ; there was no nearer choice ; and so romance
found the very match which policy would have dictated.
It was a destiny uncommon among kings — to fall in love
with a fair unknown damsel casually seen ; to wed her as
the one whose descent marked her to the politicians as
the proper queen to bring with him to his kingdom ; and
finally to tell the story of his love in sweet verse worthy of
a true poet And yet James I. showed himself rather a
practical man than a romantic dreamer. The wedding was
celebrated with great splendour. He then moved north-
wards with a stately train, enlarged from his own country
as he passed the border, and was crowned at Scone on the
2 1 St of May in the year 1424. The only thing giving a
mercenary touch to the arrangements was a demand of
forty thousand pounds to pay for .the expense of his main-
tenance ; but the French wars made money a strong ob-
ject with the English Court, and the fourth part — ten

398 JAMES I.

thousand pounds — was remitted as a marriage -portion for
the young queen.

We may take a glance at the external relations of Scot-
land before we follow the king home. A truce of seven
years with England was part of the arrangement for his
marriage and return. Henry V. had achieved his great
career, and made the title of King of England and France
no empty boast. The sense of French nationality was
almost extinguished, and in some respects the English rule
had been popular among a sadly-oppressed people. The
natural insolence of the conqueror, however, showed itself,
and a spirit of resistance and nationality began to find life
among the French. It received, great assistance from
Scotland. The party which adhered to the Dauphin and
the house of Valois kept up diplomatic relations with the
old ally, and in 141 9 arrangements had been made for
conveying a Scots auxiliary force to France. They were
to be removed in French galleys, and these the English
Government gave directions to watch for and intercept in
the narrow seas. In 142 1, however, they were successful
in carrying over seven thousand men — a marvellous
achievement. These, under the command of the Earl of
Buchan, gained the battle of Beaug^. It was the first suc-
cess which turned the tide of victory; so that King Henry,
like his great ancestor Edward I., was to die just as his
conquest was beginning to slip from his grasp. There are
few more terrible and unscrupulous beings than a baffled
conqueror. Towards the Scots allies of his enemies
Henry's actings were in sad contrast with his dealing to-
wards their king. That king he had with him in France ;
and, on the ground that their master was in his camp or
in his possession, he gave orders that all the Scots auxil-
iaries who might be taken should be hanged as rebels.
In the battle ofVemeuil they were nearly exterminated.
But France, when restored to herself, was conscious of her
debt of gratitude to those who had first stood in the gap.
Many eminent houses arose out of the rewards granted to
Scots adventurers. The celebrated Scots Guard was estab-
lished — it is said to have begun in the few who survived
Uie slaughter at Verneuil ; and a right of common citizen*

THE king's return, 1424. 399

ship was established between tlie two countries — a reci-
procity, the value of which was greatly on tlie side of the
poorer country.

The return of James I. makes a decided epoch in our
history. The period of " the Jameses '* naturally separates
itself, like that of a d}Tiasty, from the history before as
well as that which follows it. But the king's return made
a real and practical internal revolution. It becomes clear
that a hand is at work, trained in the country of Dooms-
day Book and feudal precision, of common law and statute
law. It is here, indeed, that the practical statute law of
Scotland may be said to begin. The collections of " The
Scots Acts " made for the profession go no further back
— the statutes of earlier periods having been collected
more for purposes of history than of practice. Compared
with the early English statutes, they were a slovenly mix-
ture of public laws, with local or private transactions,
judicial decisions, and diplomatic notifications. In Eng-
land the rule has been that, however old or forgotten, a.
statute is still a statute, which the courts of law must
enforce until it is repealed. Whoever, therefore, could
find anything to profit himself and damage his neighbour
in some neglected comer of the statute-book, might use it
as the discoverer of a will in his own favour may apply it
to the alteration of a succession. By the less precise
practice of Scotland, the statutory was affected by the
consuetudinary law. It was active only if kept alive by
usage, and might drop out of existence by desuetude.
Hence, in going back to the most distant of the statutes
in use, the collectors stopped at tlie commencement of
King James's reign : there, however, they found a large
harvest He kept his Parliament busy, and statutes were
passed in almost every year of his reign. Among the
earliest of these were arrangements for promulgating the
Acts themselves among the judicial and executive officers
who had chiefly to deal with them, in order that they
might not plead ignorance of the law ; and this was accom-
panied by a piece of law reform passing beyond the reach
of any light he could have obtained from England — the
laws were to be promulgated in the vulgar tongue. A

400 JAMES I.

commission was appointed to revise the old laws, such as
the Regiam Majestatem and Quonium Attachiamenta, to
amend what required amendment, and make clear what
was to be counted law, so as to keep litigation free of
** frivolous and fraudful exceptions." This was something
like an attempt to follow the strict English rule, and by
Act of Parliament separate the laws still in existence from
those in desuetude — to re-enact the one set and repeal the
other.

There was a general survey and valuation of property
for purposes of taxation. Owners of lands were required
to show the charters or other written titles by which they
held them, and there was a ijarticular inquiry regard
ing what had become of all the property vested in the
crown at the time of King Robert I. These measures
were pressed, as it were, by repeated enactments, which
no doubt conveyed the most depressing and irritating
emotions to many potent territorial lords. There were
enactments to restrain begging and vagrancy, and compel
the able-bodied to work, imitated from the legislation
which heralded the English poor-law. Weights and
measures were regulated, and a standard of the coinage
was established, so that it should be ** in like weight and
fineness to the money in England *' — a precedent which it
required courage for a King of Scots to cite. In England
the common lawyers were then marked off as a peculiar
people, following a sort of monastic life in their Inns of
Court. Without endeavouring to imitate these, the legis-
lature of the new reign adopted qualifications and restric-
tions by which those entitled to practise in the law were
separated and identified. Among these regulations is one
which has ever been an honourable peculiarity of Scotland,
and is expressed in a sympathetic tone not in keeping
with the formalities of the English draftsmen. It provides
that "if there be any poor creature that, for default of
cunning and dispenses, cannot or may not follow his
cause, the king, for the love of God, shall ordain that the
judge before whom the cause should be determined purvey
and get a lele and a wise advocate to follow such poor
creature's cause."

FATE OF ALBANY'S PARTY. 1425. 4OI

After this and much other legislative business was trans-
acted, there was an attempt to assimilate the Parliament
itself to that of England. The lesser barons were relieved
from attendance, provided they sent " commissioners " or
elected members — two for each shire, except Clackmannan
and Kinross, which were to have one each. In the same
Act there comes up once for all the English "Speaker"
and the term " Commons," in a provision that the com-
missioners are to choose " a wise and an expert man called
the common Speaker of the Parliament, the whilk shall
propose all and sundry needs and causes pertaining to the
Commons in the Parliament."

Some of the early statutes of his reign are evidently the
fruit of the king's observation of the causes of the military
superiority shown by England in the Continental wars.
He did not neglect any experience that might help him in
impro\ing the military organisation of the people. The
arms and armour of those liable to attend the feudal
musters were rearranged, and wapenshawings appointed.
Homage was paid to the enormous value of the English
bowmen in war, and an attempt was made to organise a
system of parochial archery schools over the country.*

While all this was going on the king had business more
personal to himself on hand. He had taken possession
of his throne quietly and meekly, as one who was glad to
obtain his own at last, and to ask no questions why or by
whom it had been so long kept from him. But he was
biding his time, and making inquiries for his guidance. It
was eight months after his restoration — and if there had
been any alarm at first, it seems to have lulled and died
away — when suddenly, at one blow, the king's cousin
Albany, with two of his sons and twenty-six of the leading
nobles, were arrested. This was at Perth, where there
was a Parliament, at which they were in attendance.

' Immediately following, in an Act for the discouragement of the
game of football, is one providing *'That all men task them to be
archers, fra they be twelve years of eld, and that in ilk ten pound
worth of land there be made bow-marks, and especially near paroche
kirks, where upon haly days men may come, and at the least »hoot
thrice about, and have usage of archery." — Act. Pari., ii. 5, 6.

VOL. II. 2 C

402 JAMES L

Albany and his sons were put on trial, but unfortunately
no record of the proceedings has survived to tell us the
particulars, or even the general nature of the charge
against them. They were found guilty, and executed on
the heading-hill of Stirling. The youngest son of Albany
took flight to the Highlands, and brought a body of ma-
rauders to trouble the western Lowlands, whence he escaped
to Ireland, where he founded a dynasty. The twenty-six
subordinate captives were set at liberty. We can only
guess that the motive for apprehending them was to de-
prive the house of Albany of support, or to show the aris-
tocracy that their king was alike powerful and merciful.

The king had another set of enemies to deal with re-
quiring less ceremony. Having seen how England dealt
with Wales — he was, in fact, for a time a fellow-prisoner
with Owen Glendower — he resolved to extinguish the farce
of the independent sovereignty boasted by Alexander of
the Isles. In 1427 he held an assemblage by way of a
Parliament at Inverness, to which he summoned Alexander
and some fifty chiefs — some of them very powerful, such
as Angus Duff, who, as the chroniclers say, was general of
four thousand men ; and Kenneth More Angus of Moray,
and Mackmakon, who each commanded two thousand.
They were so infatuated as to attend, and were seized,
manacled, and committed to separate dungeons. It is
useless to denounce such acts ; there was no more notion
of keeping faith with the "Irishry," whether of Ireland or
Scotland, than with the beast of prey lured to its trap.
Those it was deemed fitting to get rid of were put to
death. Whether there was the ceremonial of a trial no-
thing remains to tell. Alexander, at all events, had some
blood in his veins that entitled him to consideration ; his
grandmother was a daughter of Robert II. On this
account, as it is said, he was spared, on making all proper
submissions. But the chief did not like the whole trans-
action. In historic phrase, he abused the clemency of his
sovereign, and again raised the standard of rebellion. He
collected an army, and destroyed Inverness, the place of
his humiliation. Turning by Lochaber to march on the
Lowlands, he found that he had to do Avith an enemy too

THE LORD OF THE ISLES AGAIN, 1427-28. 403

active to wait there for him. The king carried up to the
mountains an army so well found that Alexander's followers
would not meet it, and dispersed in Highland fashion.
Hard pressed, Alexander found that there was nothing for
it but to submit He did this in a manner that gave some
surprise, and was perhaps founded on some Highland
custom. When the Court were at worship in the Chapel
of Holyrood, he appeared before the sanctuary of the high
altar, nearly destitute of clothing, and, kneeling, presented
the king with a naked sword. He was committed to Tan-
tallon Castle.

But his cause, or that of his dominion, was not utterly
lost. When a head or leader is removed from any High-
land population, they find another to hold his place. So
Donald Baloch, a relation of the captive prince, levied an
army and marched to Lochaber in 1431. There, where
the former Highland army had been dispersed, he defeated
a force led by the Earl of Mar — the victor at Harlaw.
This was a humiliation which a prince like James could
ill bear. An extraordinary tax was granted " for the re-
sistance of the king's rebellers of the north,*' a nomen-
clature reminding one of the ever-recurring denunciations
of "his Majesty's Irish rebels" in the English state papers.
The tax was to be such that *' in all lands of the realm
where the yield of twa pennies was raiset, there be now
ten pennies raiset"^ It appears that on the supply thus
collected, the king made a great expedition or progress
into the Highlands. The accounts of it are indistinct,
but they bear that the chiefs crowded round him to offer
homage, or whatever other form of submission he desired ;
and this would be the natural result if his force were
powerful.

Those who deal in the annals of such a period become
familiar with violent deaths, slaughters in the field, acts of
bloody vengeance, and cruel punishments. Yet the con-
tinual occurrence of violent deaths will not abate the
revulsion felt on the occasions — rare though these may be
—when they pass out of the field of violence, and fall on

* Act. Pari., ii. 20.

404 JAMES I.

peaceful men, teaching what they think the tnith. Again,
in the year 1432, we come to the burning of a heretic as
an event utterly isolated from the usual current of history.
The victim was a Paul Crawar, a German, believed to
have come from Bohemia to propagate the doctrines that
had been preached by John Huss and Jerome of Prague.
All that we are told of him personally is that he professed
to be a physician, and to be travelling and visiting in the
practice of his profession. The churchman who records
his burning takes occasion to enlarge on the characteristics
of Taborites, and other Bohemian heretics ; but people will
seek their information about these from better sources.^

After the conclusion of the truce in 143 1, the English
Government, making a last struggle for the maintenance
of their power in France, were very anxious for peace with
Scotland. We have no authentic record of their offers.
The chronicles speak of their proposing terms which even
included the abandonment of Berwick and Roxburgh. It
is difficult to believe in the offer of such terms, and still
more difficult to believe in their rejection, although this is
attributed to the chivalrous motive of keeping terms with
France. Events took a course drawing Scotland closer to
France and apart from England.

Within the first year of his reign a daughter was bom to
King James ; and it was agreed that, at a fitting time, she
should be betrothed to the young Dauphin of France.
In 1434 she was thirteen years old ; and it was resolved
that the right time had come for sending her to the land
where her lot was to be cast Accordingly she was con-
veyed across the Channel by as gallant a maritime escort
as Scotland could afford. In the passage between Scot-
land and France every vessel had to deal in some way or
other with the difficulty of England's power in the narrow
sea, unless the voyage were made, as it sometimes was,
westward by the Atlantic Then, and for long afterwards,
a maritime superiority had ever a piratical tendency.
There was something so tenrpting in seizing an opportu-
nity for its use that no treaties or international laws were a

^ Scotichronicon, xvi. 20.

TRANSACTIONS WITH FRANCE, 1434. 405

sufficient restraint. Though it was a time of truce between
England and Scotland, yet an English expedition was
fitted out and vigilantly watched the Scots fleet, for the
purpose of kidnapping the princess. The attempt met
with something like the retribution of a romance. The
English fleet, while watching for its prey, found casual
occupation in picking up some Netherlands vessels laden
with wine. Just as they had made this desirable acquisition,
however, a Spanish fleet came up and took it from them.
The English fleet had to seek safety ; and keeping in such
circumstances but an imperfect watch, the Scots carried
their princess safely into La Rochelle, and she was mar-
ried to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. This, and
some other incidents, made bad blood between England
and Scotland; but no serious contest followed. King
James began a siege of Roxburgh, as if he were deter-
mined to drive the English out of what they continued to
hold on the north side of the border; but he suddenly
stopped the siege, having, as it would appear, serious calls
on his attention elsewhere.

There were signs of mischief abroad that could not but
create anxiety, but neither the king nor his close advisers
seem to have known, or even suspected, that there was an
organised conspiracy for putting him to death. In seek-
ing out the effective motive for such a crime, had only
one cause of enmity to the king been known, that alone
would have been unanimously set down as the cause of
the tragedy; but the inquirer is confused by finding
several causes, while to no one of them in particular has
the origin of the tragedy been separately and distinctly
traced. The king was popular with the country at large.
The legal and parliamentary practices brought with him
from England were favourable to the protection of the
property, industry, and civil liberty of the humbler classes.
In so far as they were so, they tended to check feudal
powers which had grown in the times of war, and of the
confused and feeble government of later years. The new
government was of that strong impartial kind which a
waxing feudal power hates. The king's strict inquiry into
the titles to feudal domains was very unwelcome, and he

406 JAMES T.

had done things practically to frighten many of the great
lords about the preservation of their territories.

We have seen how the Earl of March lost all his wealth
and feudal power by a mistake in shifting his allegiance
to England. This was in the year 1400. Nine years
afterwards, he negotiated with Albany for a restoration,
and was reinvested in such of his estates as could be got
out of the gripe of the Douglases. These his son inherited,
but his title came under question. It was said that tlie
regent, Albany, had no power to reverse a forfeiture for
treason. All the March estates were again declared to be
annexed to the crown. This was done after a full hearing
of all that could be said for the holder of the domains,
and with full parliamentary formality, as the decision of
the three Estates.^ It was held, however, to be an
example of the special policy which influenced the king's
government.

The family of March retired to England, and were not
personally implicated in the coming tragedy ; so that any
influence which the loss of their estates had on that event
must have arisen from the alarm felt by others who might
suffer from like proceedings. Another case of forfeiture
seems to have increased the alarm. The earldom of Strath-
earn belonged to the eldest son of Robert II.'s second
marriage. He left a daughter only, who was married to
Sir Patrick Graham, and carried the earldom to their son,
Malise Graham. It was maintained that this was a male
fief which could not be carried by the female line. The
earldom was forfeited and transferred to the male heir,
Walter Stewart, Earl of Athole.

It is to him, though thus benefited, that we must look,
however, as the person whose position drew to him the
darkest suspicions. He was a brother of the David who
had been made Earl of Strathearn, and a son of Robert
II. by his second wife, Euphemia Ross. We have seen
how the question stood between the two successive wives,
Elizabeth Mure and Euphemia Ross, and the conditions
nnder which the children of the former were deemed ille-

* Act. Pari., ii. 23*

PLOTS AGAINST THE KING, 1435-36. 4Q7

gitimate by the canon law, though all available means of
rendering them legitimate in the eyes of the world had
been adopted, and their title as successors to the crown
had been ratified by statute. The Earl of Athole was a
very old man, and it is said to have been his grandson
who chiefly stirred this question. The question, however,
is further perplexed by this, that Maiise Graham was
descended from the eldest son of the second marriage,
and would be heir if the children of the first marriage were
disqualified. Stratheam was taken from him because it
had come through the female line, but there was ample
precedent for the throne so descending, if the parliament-
ary settlement were discarded.

However all this may have been, the real chief worker
of the coming tragedy was neither of these persons, who
might prefer claims to the crown, but Sir Robert Graham,
who h^d no such claim. He was yet connected with one
of them, but with that one which had no concern in the
affair — he was the uncle of the Earl of Stratheam, as
brother of him who had married the granddaughter of
Robert II. It is said that Graham forcibly expressied
himself in Parliament about the encroachment of the king
on the territorial aristocracy, and denounced him as a
t)Tant. Whether for this or other things, he became a
ruined and banished man, and sought refuge among the
Highlanders.

Whoever were the heads, here were the hands for any
act of violence. They would receive with eminent satis-
faction a fugitive from the law. On them the sovereign
had no claims : in their o^vn estimate, they received
nothing of him but stripes, and owed him nothing but
vengeance. If Sir Robert Graham felt the difficulty of
bringing his wild followers to the spot where his purpose
was to be effected, the king himself made this easy by
taking up his Court in Perth, at their very gate It was
the practice of the Court to quarter from time to time on
the affluent religious houses; and the king resolved to
distinguish the Monastery of the Black Friars in Perth,
by holding his Christmas festivities there in the winter o(
1436, and remaining for a period as their guest

408 JAMES I.

He had ample warning of danger, for Graham had de-
nounced him as a tyrant worthy of death — an enemy of
the human race, who should be killed out of hand by the
first man who met him. Portents and dreams and pro-
phesies were rife among the attendants of the Court. A
weird Highland woman, who might have had better foun-
dation for her knowledge than the second-sight, was said
to have prophesied the coming tragedy, and in vain to
have pressed her warnings on the victim. James was of a
courageous nature, and it was an age when the apprehen-
sive led very wretched lives. He would have his sport out
of all the portents, and some of his merry jests concerning
them down to the last were held in remembrance.

It was on the evening of the 20th of February. The
royal party had broken up, and the king, disrobed, and
wrapp>ed in what would now be called a dressing-gown,
lingered before the fire of the reception-room, chatting
with the queen and her ladies, when ominous sounds were
heard. Three hundred of the wild Highlanders were
breaking their way into the monastery. The ease with
which they did so shows us how slight were the guards
and protections surrounding royalty in that day. As the
sounds approached, the party within looked to the fasten-
ings of the doors, and found that they had been tampered
with by treacherous hands within. The next glance was
to the windows, but these were too well secured to permit
escape. The king had none but women round him ; and,
praying these to hold the entrance as well as they could,
he staved up a flag or board of the flooring, and descended
into a vault below. The poor women could offer small
resistance to the coming force. It is recorded of one of
them — a Douglas — tliat, finding the great bolt of the
chamber-door gone, she thrust her arm through the
staples. Tliis poor impediment was easily crushed, and
but served to give a touching addition to the traditions of
feminine devotion.

The place into which the king had descended was a
cloaca, or sewer. As fate would have it, there had been
an opening to it by which he might have escaped, but
this had, a few days earlier, been closed by his own order,

MURDER OF THE KING, 1436. 409

because the balls by which he played at tennis were apt
to fall into it.

The murderers rushed like a tempest through the build-
ings, and, not finding their victim, were fain to believe
that he had escaped. There was one, however — the same,
apparently, who had destroyed the fastenings — who sus-
pected what had happened ; and when the chamber of
reception was examined, it was found that the floor had
been newly broken. It was short work to tear open the
flooring, and then their victim stood before them. When
he spoke of mercy, Graham charged him as a cruel
tyrant, who never showed mercy to others — nay, not to
those of his own blood — and should now receive none.
James was a strong man, and brave, like all his race.
Though unarmed, he grappled with those who descended
so fiercely that they bore the mark of his gripes to the
scaffold. There were sixteen stabs in his body when it
was taken up.^

The poet Drummond tells us that " He was buried in the
Charter-house of Perth, which he had founded, where the
dublet in which he was slain was kept almost to our time
as a relic, and with execrations seen of the people, every
man thinking himself interested in his wrong." ^

* There is fortunately an account of this murder— undoubtedly by
a contemporary, and to all appearance prepared by one who had the
best information obtainable at the time. It is entered thus in Nichol-
son's Scottish Historical Library (p. 157), as ''A full, lamentable
Chronycle of the dethe and false murdure of James Steward, last
King of Scotys, nought long agone prisoner in Englande 3m the
Tymes of the Kings Henry the Fifte and Henry the Sixte, translated
out of Latyne into oure modem Englische tong bi your simple sub-
ject, John Shireley." The translator says he finished his work in the
year 1440. This tract has been three times printed — first, as an ap-
pendix to Pinkerton's History of Scotland from the Accession of the
House of Stewart ; second, in vol. ii. of the collection called Mis-
cellanea Scotica, printed at Glasgow in 1818 ; third, by John Gait,
as a historical illustration to his novel of The Spaewife.

* Works of William Drummond of Hawthomden, p. 17. It has
been discovered that, in 1443, a knight of St John of Jerusalem
brought his heart from Rhodes, and showed it to the monks of the
** Charter- house" or Carthusian Monastery on the day, as it would
seem, of the Purification. *' There is a payment, * Roberto Nory in

41 JAMES T.

partem expensarum militis sancti Hieresolomitani de Rodb defercntis
cor Domini Jacobi primi domini regis moderni genitoris ad regniun
tempore purificationis, et exhibitionis ejusdem cordis inonachis Domus
Cartusensis de Perth, ubi corpus dicti domini regis sepelitur.' " This
is referred to here, not liecause it can be offered as a clear and in-
structive statement, but because the most learned of Scots genealogists,
who found it in the Rolls of the Customs in the Register House, ad-
ministers a scolding to Mr Fraser Tvtler and the whole tribe of his-
torians for not making *' any intimation " of it. But there must be a
licence to pass over such fragmentary scraps, unless their tenor can
be explained and rendered significanL I cannot admit that the dis-
coverer of this item of account has given a correct explanation of it
when he speaks of ''This curious and solemn ceremony in regard to
the heart of James I., or of its consignment apparently to the Knights
of Jerusalem, and return to Scotland, before its purification and hal-
lowed exhibition at the place of sepulchre." As appropriate to this
great discovery, and his judicious use of it, the author continues :
** What we want in a history of Scotland are solicf original facts, not
flimsy or commonplace inferences from those that are known." — In-
quiry into the Law and Practice in Scottish Peerages, by Jobs
Kiddell, Esq., Advocate (1842}, p. 262.

4lf

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JAMES II.

»ATR OF THE MURDERERS— AN INFANT KING—HIS CORONATION AT
IIOLYROOD— PLOTS FOR HIS CUSTODY— KIDNAPPED BY CRICHTON—
THE HOUSE OF DOUGLAS— THE CHIEF BROUGHT TO EDINBURGH AND
PUT TO DEATH— EFFECT OF THIS— SECRET SOURCE OF THE I^WER
OF THE HOUSE— CONNECTION WITH FRANCE— CONFLICT WITH THE
CKOWN— INFLUENCE OF THE CRICHTON FAMILY — MARY OF GUEL-
DRES— THE DOUGLAS BAND — TRAGEDY OF THE TUTOR OF BUNBY —
SLAUGHTER OF THE DOUGLAS IN STIRLING CASTLE — GATHERING OF
THE SUPPORTERS OF THE HOUSF,— PREPARATIONS FOR CIVIL WAR—
THE TIGER EARL OF CRAWFURD — BATTLE OF BRECHIN- GREAT CON-
TEST WITH THE HOUSE OF DOUGLAS — ITS OVERTHROW FOR THE
TIME— A PARLIAMENT, AND ITS DEALINGS WITH THE DOUGLASES
AND OTHER MATTERS— INFLUENCE OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES IN
ENGLAND — EXPEDITION TO RETAKE THE TERRITORIES CAPTURED
BY ENGLAND— SIEGE OF ROXBURGH— DEATH OF THE KING.

The murderers found immediately that their crime was
a blunder. He who, in the light of their selfish interests
and animosities, was a tyrant, was to the nation at large a
popular king. The stability of the throne and the dynasty
appeared in the accession without impediment of the mur-
dered king's son, a boy of six years old. The cry of ven-
geance had arisen so speedily, that from the roused citizens
of Perth the murderers escaped with difficulty to their
refuge in the mountains. The chase after theip, however,
was too hot and determined, to give them a chance of
escape ; and there are significant vestiges of the methods
. resorted to in the pursuit, in evidence of certain rewards
given to Highland chiefs who made themselves useful on
the occasion. A group of the principal actors sufficient to

412 JAMES II.

glut public vengeance seems to have been gathered. The
records of their trials, like all others of that age, are lost,
and we have nothing but accounts, all too horribly distinct,
of the method in which they were put to death — for oif
course that was the only conclusion that could be to theii
doom, though it was protracted as long as life would hold
out against powerful torture. In fact, the accounts we
have of the death of these criminals by torture, seems to
exhaust everything that the skill of the panderers to the
cruel lust of the Roman emperors could devise, and every-
thing that the imagination of the early painters, who de-
lighted in the representation of martyrdoms, could imagine.
It is necessary to keep in mind the toughness of northern
constitutions to understand how the human frame supplied
life enough to endure it all. Nailing to crosses and trees,
mutilating, tearing with pincers, fire, pressing with weights
and squeezing with thongs, so that the contemporary ob-
server, who had a loyal horror of their deeds, could not
describe the expiation without some natural relentings,
feeling the process " full sick and piteous to look upon,"
— " that it was to any mankind too sorrowful and piteous
sight, and too abominable to see." ^

The interest of the retribution centres in Sir Robert
Graham, the demon hero of the tragedy. In the little we
know of this man there are glimpses of a sort of terrible
grandeur. He was reputed to be a man of scholarly ac-
complishments and great learning. He was defiant to the
last, and spoke his defiance so long as his lips had utter-
ance, but it was not the expression of the mere impulse
of brute obstinacy. He said there was no use of denying
that he was guilty according to the notions of those who
judged him, but he was righteous in his own esteem. He
had slain the enemy who would have slain him and many
others. He rose even to a far higher tone of justification
than this, for he was supported by the hallucination that
he was a martyr in a noble cause, and he proclaimed to
the crowd that the day would come when a grateful pos-
terity would bless his memory because he had rid the world

^ Contemp. Account, ui sup.

AN INFANT KING, 1437. 413

of a tyrant. But still more distinct marks of strong and
strange peculiarities of character were in an appeal made
to his torturers — an appeal not to their compassion, but
to their fears ; it is thus reported : " I doubt me full sore
that an ye continue thus your torments upon my wretched
person, tliat for the pain ye will constrain me to deny my
Creator ; and if I so do, I appeal you before God the high
and chief Judge of all mankind after their deserts at the
universal doom, that ye been the very cause of the loss of
my soul." ^

Graham, with one group of his assistants, suffered at
Stirling ; Athole and his grandson, with some others, were
tortured to death in Edinburgh. We have seen their royal
descent and claims, and some derisive accompaniments of
the old man's punishment evidently point to the family's
expectations. A paper crown was put on his head when
he was tortured, and an iron crown was put upon the same
head after it was removed and stuck on the shaft of a spear
in the High Street of Edinburgh. The old man said he
had no concern with the murder, but he admitted that he
knew it to be in design, and said he had concealed this
knowledge because he would not betray his own grandson
to the royal vengeance.

There is some significance in finding that the coronation
of the young king was in Holyrood, instead of Scone, where
his ancestors had been inaugurated as far back as record
or tradition traced them. The banks of the Tay had been
shown, on startling evidence, to be too near the Highlands
for safety. Yet it can hardly be said that the poor boy on
whom the crown of Scotland alighted was much safer in
the heart of the Lowlands. To get possession of him, as
the symbol of regal power, was the aim of the ruling houses
of the day, and the method in which they put their policy
in practice was by kidnapping him. The queen, after the
murder, seeking a place of safety for herself and her child,
found it in the Castle of Edinburgh. Sir William Crichton,
the Chancellor, was governor of the castle. His is not to
be counted one of the governing houses of the day ; but

^ Contemp. Ac.

414 JAMES II.

the custody of the king gave him opportunities to advance
his power, and he was a man who kiiew how to use them.

Beginning, however, rather abruptly to isolate the in-
fant, to the alarm of the mother, she outwitted him, and
spirited away the child. She announced her intention to
make a short journey, under conditions so sacred that her
motions must not be too curiously scrutinised. She was
to make her pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady at White-
kirk, in East Lothian. This was a shrine illustrious in its
day, having a special national sanctity as an avenger of
Knglish sacrilege, but now forgotten even in tradition.^
The queen's selection was made, however, not on account
of specialties in the character of the sanctity peculiar to
this shrine, but because the natural way of reaching it was
by going on shipboard at Leith. She had with her certain
bales of luggage, in one of which her infant was concealed.
When her vessel was cleared of Leith harbour, instead of
sailing eastward, the head was turned to the west, and thus
the queen conveyed her charge by water to Stirling, where
Sir Alexander Livingston commanded.^

This incident made Livingston the rival of Crichton,
end, for a time, a rival in the ascendant. The Earl of
Douglas had been appointed Lieutenant or Governor of
the kingdom, and his power was sufficient to have kept
down all such rivalries ; but he died in 1439, leaving a son
only seventeen years old to succeed him. Thus for a time
was postponed the career of the house of Douglas in Scots
history. In 1 439 the queen married " The Black Knight of
Lorn," probably for the sake of a protector in the midst of
the strong and unscrupulous men who were pulling at her-
self and her child. It certainly, from the aspect of events,
does not appear that she was at first successful in procur-
ing protection, for we find Livingston, as master of the
situation, imprisoning both her and her husband. He

^ See above, ch. xxv. There is still an old church at Whitekirk, with
some Gothic work about it, and, what is more rare in Scotland, th«
ancient barn in which the ecclesiastics connected with the establish-
ment had stored their grain.

' Leslie, p. 13.

RISE OF CRICIITON, 1439-40. 415

afterwards obtained a remission or pardon for the act
These things can be only briefly told as facts, for the ob-
jects and policy connected with them cannot be discovered
with sufficient clearness to be set down.

Crichton, as governor of Edinburgh Castle, was still
a powerful man, and he made a successful stroke. Watch-
ing his opportunity, he took a force out to Stirling, and
kidnapped the king as he was taking his morning exercise
in the royal park. The boy was taken to Edinburgh in a
sort of triumph, as rescued from his captivity in the hands
of a traitorous subject. Thus again Crichton was able to
dictate to his rivals. He was not unreasonable, however ;
and as it was desirable that the king should be under the
protection of Livingston, we are told that Crichton was
induced to submit to this arrangement, in consideration of
certain rewards. The character of these is not stated, but
there is no doubt that at this time the house of Crichton
began to wax powerful, and little doubt that it profited by
a tacit compact or partnership with Livingston.

Perhaps, however, more than by his own aggrandise-
ment, the Lord Crichton of that generation became con-
spicuous for the manner in which he removed a great
impediment to his ambition, the aim of which was to rise
through his influence in the court of the young king.

We have seen that the earldom of Douglas fell to a
youth but seventeen years old. He became conspicuous
by his haughtiness, extravagance, and display of power.
It was reported that a thousand men-at-arms, many of
them of knightly rank, rode with the Douglas. He kept
a household that in princely expenditure made the royal
establishment seem meagre and provincial. No one ap-
peared for the young man at the high courts of the king's
Parliament, or on any of the other occasions on which
noble subjects did duty and homage to the throne. It
was said, indeed, that he more affected having a sort 01
Parliament or great council of his own.

It was resolved by Crichton and his friends that the
young Douglas should be put to death. He was invited,
with great show of distinction and courtesy, to visit the
young king in the Castle of Edinburgh, and he was so un-

4l6 JAMES II.

conscious of treachery that he brought his brother with
him. This both surprised and delighted the plotters, who
seem to have been afraid that any attempt to lure both
into their trap might have raised suspicion. They were
both beheaded. Some form of trial there must have been,
but, like all others of the age, it has been lost. The
chroniclers tell us that the knowledge of their doom came
upon them while, in unsuspecting security, they were en-
joying the royal hospitalities, and that it was symbolically
announced, according to a practice of the time, by placing
a bull's head on the board.

This cannot be viewed as an act of private vengeance,
arising out of family feuds. It was an affair of state, and
must have had something to justify it as a piece of policy.
A young man, inflated by pride because he finds himself
rich and powerful, forgetting his position, and playing
fantastic tricks, could not be a sufficient motive for such a
deed ; and we must look for its causes into tlie position of
the house of Douglas as a power in the state. Undoubt-
edly it was at that time the most popular name in Scot-
land. The Douglases had endeared themselves to the
people by bearing a hand — ^and that a powerful one — in
almost every contest which had gone to the securing of
the national independence and the enhancing of the
national glory. They were children of the soil, who could
not be traced back to the race of the enemy or stranger.
Whatever may have been their actual origin, they were
known as rooted in Scotland at the time when the Norman
adventurers crowded in. The Douglas was the first to
throw himself into the national cause as a follower of
AVallace. " The good Sir James " was the good King
Robert's right-hand man, intrusted with the pilgrimage to
convey his heart to the war in Spain. The achievements
of the hero of Otterbum would alone have made a name
illustrious ; and the smaller affairs, in which it was ever a
Douglas that was the victorious champion of Scotland,
were countless. It was the Douglases fighting for their
own land that redeemed the border counties from England
when Edward III. had taken them as the gift of Edward
Baliol. And here lay one of the great sources of their

>.

SECRET OF THE DOUGLAS POWER, 1439-40- 417

power ; for it was not becoming, even if it were quite safe,
to deprive such heroes of the spoil won by their sword and
their spear. The fall of their rivals of March increased
tlieir territorial influence; and at the time we have reached
they were lords of somewhere about two-thirds of the rich
district of Scotland lying to the south of Edinburgh, while
they had estates scattered here and there farther to the
north.

We have seen how the body of Scots under the Earl of
Buchan served in France. It was deemed that a great
accession to the national cause would be obtained if the
services of Archibald, Earl of Douglas, with such a force
as he could bring with him, were secured. But he was
too great a man to be expected to come as an ordinary
stipendiary, however high might be the rank and liberal
the remuneration assigned to him. An embassy was sent,
with Buchan at its head, to treat with him, and Douglas
entered into alliance with France, by an instrument dated
in October 1423. The slaughter among illustrious houses
in France at that time put great store of territories and
titles at the disposal of the crown, and in these the Scots
adventurers amply partook. Douglas had for his share
several domains, such as the countship of Longueville.
But these were trifles beside his great reward in the duke-
dom of Touraine — one of the old provinces which held of
the crown, yet was virtually a sovereignty. Within it, and
holding of the duke, were many lordships and feudal
domains fit to endow considerable houses in the duke's
native country. Probably there never was a coronation
of a king of Scots so splendid as the inauguration of the
new duke in his capital, the ancient city of Tours, where
he went in procession through streets hung with tapestry
and strewed with flowers, to be received and welcomed by
the archbishop and canons in the cathedral. Such was
the culmination of the fortunes of the house of Douglas.

We do not, however, see all that made the house of
Douglas formidable to that of Stewart until we get at a
fact of a nature to give an aim to the vast material powers
in the hands of this house. They had more than one
recent alliance with royalty ; but this we may pass over,

vou H. 2 D

4l8 JAMES U.

and look to genealogical points, which will carry us back
to the group of competitors who solicited the crown of
Scotland from Edward I. We have seen that the claim
of the Comyns was subsidiary to that of Baliol at the time
of the competition. Had there been an opportunity for
that Red Comyn who was slain at Dumfries stating his
claims, these would have been strengthened by two facts
— the one, that Baliol and his son Edward had resigned
the crown ; the other, that he was the son of BalioFs sis-
ter, and thus took up the rights so resigned. Archibald
Douglas, the brother and the heir of the good Lord James,
married a Dornagilla, reputed to be the sister of the Red
Comyn, and the daughter of Baliol's sister.' She thus
brought the claims of her slain brother into the house of
Douglas ; but by the time we have now reached, these
claims had been signally strengthened. They no longer
rested on such a questionable foundation as the renuncia-
tion of their right by men still living. The house of
Baliol was extinct, and all its claims were believed to vest
in the representative of the Comyns. Thus the house of
Douglas was descended from the elder daughter of William
the Laon's brother — the house of Stewart from the younger.
During the century and a half which had passed since
King Edward, sitting as lord superior, had decided that
the line of the elder should be exhausted before that of
the younger could succeed, this doctrine had made pro-
gress as the only solution of the problem of hereditary
succession. It is the existing rule of succession to the
crown of Britain. It could not be but that such a belief
must nourish hopes in the house of Douglas, and become
the natural centre round which their wealth and influence
gathered. And here it must be noted that for such a
tradition holding influence, it is not necessary to sup-
pose that the genealogy on which it rested was true — it
suffices that it was believed. As the progress of opinion
tended towards what was afterguards called the " divine
right*' of hereditary descent, there was a tendency to
fortify all existing powers by genealogical support When

^ Douglas's Peerage, by Wood, i. 423.

SECRET OF THE DOUGLAS POWER, 1439-40. 419

a great house was strengthening itself to claita a domin-
ion, part of its policy was to find genealogical support
for that claim. When the Guises were plotting for
supremacy in France, a rumour went forth that they were
the lineal representatives of Charlemagne. Had they
succeeded in their revolution, the accepted genealogies
of the day would have loudly proclaimed, as the most im-
portant element in all secular knowledge, the details of
this descent, and it would have obtained general assent,
its falsity becoming only known to the students of geneal-
ogy, not as a part of statecraft, but as an exact science.
Had the Douglases been successful, the chroniclers would
have defended their right, and impugners would have
been silenced. We have seen how open the house of
Stewart itself has been to the assaults of the scientific
genealogists. But while it reigned it had power to
impress genealogy as well as other ministering influences
into its service.^ In the supposition that they must have

^ That great genealogist Lord Hailes wrote a powerful dissertation,
sho^nng that the succession to the house of Douglas had gone into a
wrong line with the accession of the third earl in the middle of the
fourteenth century, and that the whole strange career of the Douglases
from that period down to 14S8 is due to a genealogical blunder. The
man who, both by ofBcial position and full knowledge, is best entitled
to settle such points, says it is a ''perfectly ascertained fact that the
third and all subsequent Earls of Douglas were descended, not from
the brother of the Good Sir James, who was supposed to have married
Domagilla Comyn, but illegitimately from Sir James himself;" and
that *'the mother of the Earl of Douglas, instead of being the fabled
Domagilla, was Beatrice, daughter of Sir David Lyndsay of Crauford."
The Lyon King-at-Arms in ^Iacmillan's Magazine, June 1S67, p. 107.
For the reasons stated inthe text, however, the knowledge that the
theory of the royal descent of the Douglases had flaws in it more than
one, does not make the reliance on it less important to history. IMie
investigations of genealogists of the strictly scientific school reveal
curious cross influences in matters of descent and representation.
ITiey have often to show how the imperfect development of their
science taught it to give strength to false claims ; on the other hand,
they reveal to us the influence, both in social conditions and in his-
tory, of the system of records which came in with the Normans. The
feudal rule, that all territorial estates must l)e held of the sovereign,
and that the evidence of that tenure must be in writing, is substan-
tially the material of which the science of genealogy has been made.
To this store of material an eminent contribution was made by tliC

420 JAMES II.

carried their litle through the claims of John Baliol, they
would have had perhaps to encounter one of the popular
fallacies that give legitimacy to the stronger. The remem-
brance of Baliol was so odious, that, as we have seen, one
of the Stewarts had to abandon the name of John because
it had been borne by that man. On the other hand, the
memory of Bruce was worshipped with a devoutness
which it is difficult now to realise. A tradition kept obsti-
nate hold on the Scots national mind that Baliol had basely
sold the independence of Scotland for the right of calling
himself king, and that from the beginning of the dispute
the Bruce of the day had nobly asserted that he would
never accept of the crown of Scotland but as that of an
independent sovereignty. Such was the story, endeared
to the national mind by traditions, ballads, and chronicles.
Sober history took it up, and made it secure and respect-
able. It spread through historical literature at home and
abroad ; and it is believed to be read at this day with
implicit reliance by a large portion of the reading com-
munity, although we have seen how utterly it is falsified
by historical facts.

It has puzzled historians that a measure so thoroughly
strong as the execution of the head of the house and his
brother should not have been followed by the seizure of
the Douglas estates as forfeited for treason. There might
be reasons for this omission of an ordinary result of trials
for treason. The Douglas ruled a large territory, inhabited
by a feudal hierarchy that seems to have, high and low,
been strongly attached to their supreme lord. They were
not likely to be conciliated by the occurrence in Edin-
burgh Castle ; and the cousin, and virtually the represen-

competition before King Edward, and the record of it in the Great
RolL It gave a distinctness to the larger hereditary interests in Scot-
land, and in the distinctness which it gave to them so far back as
record reaches, showed the futility of attempting to go further.
When Comyn traced his descent to the legitimate line of Duncan,
and put it into the technical form of feudality, **quod quidem ante-
cessor suus Dovenaldus filius Duncani filius Crinifuit seisitusde regno
Scotiae," his story passed unnoticed that the court might look to the
serious cKiims capable of proof by writing and seal.

SECOND RISE OF THE DOUGLAS, 1443-52. 42 1

tativc, of the young men, was a man of capacity, courage,
and tenacity of purpose, in the vigour of life. A territory
of this kind was not to be forfeited to the crown so easily
as some meagre barony, the owner of which had got into
political trouble and disgrace.

But even as matters went the blow weakened the house
of Douglas. The representative of the two young men
was their sister, and thus the province of Touraine, being
a male fief, reverted to the crown of France.

The Scots domains, too, were divided. Margaret, the
sister of the two young men, known in her day as the Fair
Maid of Galloway, succeeded to one portion of them, and
their granduncle succeeded to another. If we could dis-
cover the specialties of tenure which caused this division,
they would, on account of what follows, be of no historical
moment. The granduncle, who unexpectedly succeeded
to the other domains, was old and inactive, and is remem-
bered in the history of that stirring house as James the
Fat He died in 1443. His son William, who succeeded
him, was, as we shall presently see, a man of a different
order. He presented at once so menacing a front that
the two partners who shared the government — Crichton
and Livingston — found it unsafe to declare war with him.
Livingston had the custody of the king in Stirling Castle,
and there one day Douglas appeared to do his humble
duty to his sovereign. The request was not to be denied ;
but in granting it Livingston became partner with Doug-
las, and Crichton knew that he had to look to himself.
Douglas professed to be distinguished by the favour of
the young prince, then thirteen years old, and set forth
that his Majesty had appointed him Lieutenant-General
of the kingdom. It is questioned whether any such
appointment went through the proper forms — it would
have required, indeed, the co-operation of Crichton, who,
as Chancellor, held the seals. But Douglas had the real
power, and used it. A Parliament was called, to which
Crichton was summoned. The Chancellor, knowing how
little favour the house of Douglas owed him, thought it
the safer plan to give defiance, so he remained within the
Castle of Edinburgh, which he victualled and strengtheneA

422 JAMES II.

The Lieutenant-General easily took his family fortress of
Crichton, but he held out the Castle of Edinburgh so
well that it was deemed prudent to grant him terms.

Douglas meanwhile reunited the dominions of his house
by obtaining a divorce from his wife, and marrying, by
Papal licence, his cousin, the Fair Maid of Galloway, a
child eleven years old. A few years aftenvards, in 1449,
there was another alliance, more illustrious, but of less
historical moment. The young king was married to Mary,
the daughter of the Duke of Gueldres. The bride was
accompanied by a distinguished body of knights. They
were received with as much magnificence as Scotland
could aflford, but the contrast of that with the wealth and
luxury they left behind must have been very noticeable,
for the Netherlands were then the richest part of Europe,
and looked on Germany, and even France, as poor
countries. If they did not find much substantial luxur>',
the strangers were received with the highest courtesies of
chivalry, inasmuch as they were allowed fighting at the
lists to their hearts' content. They were honoured, by
permission, to pit their chosen champions against a like
number of Scotland in one of those tournaments ^
otitrance^ which were no mere displays of skill, but deadly
battles. At these entertainments they had opportunity to
mark the power of the Douglas, who, it is said, had a train,
or rather army, of five thousand men at his back.

As the young king was growing to manhood the Doug-
las was concentrating his power, and the elements of
a crisis were fermenting. The Douglas had two ways
of aggrandising his power by combinations with others,
choosing either according to the amount of their rank and
influence of the leader he desired to secure. With some
heads of great houses he sought an alliance, as if on
terms of equality. Thus he entered into a bond with the
Earls of Crawfurd and Ross. The former represented the
fallen house of March in its wrongs and enmities, and
whatever remnant was left of its estates. The Earl of
Ross was almost supreme in the Highlands, as not merely
the holder of a peerage, but as the representative of the
old Maarmors beyond Loch Ness and the Moray Firtlu

SECOND RISE OF THE DOUGLAS, 1443-52. 423

The bond was in the usual fonn, binding the parties to
make common cause against all opponents. It does not
seem to have included the Livingstons, but they were
ranked as allies or dependencies on Douglas. With
smaller persons, especially those in his own neighbour-
hood, Douglas took more direct measures. He summoned
tliem to attend him at the meetings over which he pre-
sided — a sort of parliaments — and if they neglected to
appear they suffered. Those who thought themselves
strong enough to offer resistance to the power of the
Douglas, near his own territories, were sometimes brought
cruelly to a sense of their folly. The slaughter of two per-
sons of note afforded flagrant instances of the spirit of defi-
ance in which he exercised his power — these were Her-
ries of Terregles and Sandilands of Calder. Crichton,
who, though shorn of his great power, was still Lord
Chancellor of the kingdom, made a narrow escape from
seizure by a party of the Douglases — and that so close to
the centre of authority that he was at the time on his way
from Edinburgh to go on shipboard in the Firth of Forth.
One of the Douglas outrages was memorable from its
dramatic incidents. Douglas had called a great assem-
blage of his own proper vassals, and of those neighbour-
ing landholders whom he counted as under his banner.
One of these, named M'Lelian, and called the Tutor of
Bunby, as tutor or guardian to the young laird of that
domain, refused to attend the meeting. He was seized
and taken to Douglas Castle. His friends had good
grounds to fear for his life. His uncle, Sir Patrick Grey,
captain of the king's guard, busied himself for the captive's
safety, and appeared, provided with warrants under the
sign-manual and the proper seals for the Tutor's release.
Sir Patrick got a courteous reception from the Douglas.
The guest must accept of hospitality in the first place-
business would come afterwards. It is believed that the
poor Tutor was alive when Sir Patrick arrived, and that
Douglas, suspecting the object of the visit, whispered to
an attendant to have him despatched. When the hos-
pitalities were ended, Douglas read the warrant. To its
full extent he was unfortunately not in a condition to

424 JAMES II.

comply with it Sir Patrick, however, should have his
nephew, though unfortunately he was somewhat changed
in condition since his arrival in Douglas Castle — ^in fact,
he was headless. Such was a specimen of the kind of acts
of which an account was run up against Douglas at
court

In the midst of his career, it is part of his personal
history that he made a pilgrimage or progress to Rome
through France. He had, of course, his own object in
this. It is not now known; but the affair has its significance
from the royal character of his establishment and attend-
ance, and the historical tone in which the event is chron-
icled. In fact, there are traces, not distinct enough to
help to any absolute conclusions, yet generally importing
that Douglas kept up busy communication with political
persons abroad, and with leaders of parties in England,
where the great feud of the Roses was giving opportunities
for special combinations and alliances.

The king had now passed his majority, yet was there
no attempt to give battle to the Douglas. We know that
the Livingstons were ruined, kith and kin. It is hard to
say whether this is to be counted the beginning of war, by
a skirmish with an outpost of the great enemy, or was a
clearing of old scores with the Livingstons themselves,
who, in the treatment of the young king and his mother,
had given abundant materials for charges of treason.
Douglas, at all events, did not take this as an act of war.
He continued to bear himself with haughty courtesy
towards the king, like an independent sovereign desirous
to be at peace with his neighbour.

In the year 1452, just when the winter festivals were
finished, the king desired to have a personal conference
on matters of state with the Douglas, and invited him to
be a guest in Stirling Castle. Like his cousins, he came
seemingly without misgiving — a spirit of chivalrous reliance
and a contempt of suspiciousness seem to have been part
of the proud nature of the house. Of course he had
guarantees for safety — some say it was the safe-conduct of
the king alone, others that it was backed by the assurances
of the noble persons who were to be his fellow-visitors.
He arrived on the 13th of January. The party dined and

STRUGGLE WITH THE DOUGLAS, 1452-54. 425

supped with much cordiality and courtesy. After supper
the king took Douglas aside into an inner chamber, where
they spoke together. One topic after another was taken
up, when the dangerous question of the Bands was opened
— probably the one great object for which the meeting
was desired. The discussion grew irritating. Douglas
would give no sign that he was prepared to desert his
allies. The king at last demanded that he should break
the Bands. He answered that he would not. "Then
this shall," said the king, and he twice stabbed his guest.
Sir Patrick Grey, who was at hand, and ^'as no safe neigh-
bour if the Douglas were at disadvantage, came up and
felled him with a pole-axe. His body was cast from the
chamber- window into the court below.

The conditions by which this crime was accompanied
and followed show that it was a mere act of ferocious im-
pulse, and had no place in any settled plan. There was
no preparation for dealing with its consequences. The
king and his guests indeed had good reason to be alarmed
for their safety. The murdered man had four stout
brothers, who, with such force as they found at hand, sur-
rounded Stirling Castle. The fortress was unassailable,
and they were unable to do more than show defiance and
contumely, and this they did in a public and flagrant
fashion. It was said that they nailed the safe-conduct
to the cross, that all men might read it, and then had it
trailed through the miry streets of Stirling tied to the tail
of the wretchedest horse that could be found, uttering the
while what one chronicler calls " uncouth,*' and another
" slanderous words." They burned and destroyed what-
ever property in the neighbourhood could be called the
king's, and, going a step further, committed much mischief
on the burghers of Stirling and other loyal subjects.

It appeared now to have come to the arbitration of
the sword whether the house of Douglas or the house of
Stewart should rule in Scotland. There was civil war
from the border to the Moray Firth. Amidst the general
confusion, in which almost every landowner was bound to
take a side, we can trace the influence of the social and
political peculiarities of the time. In the north the influ-
ence of the house of Douglas depended on the league

426 JAMES IT.

with the Earl of Ross, who niled beyond the Moray Firth,
— and the Earl of Crawfurd, whose estates and feudal influ-
ence were in Strathmore and other parts of midland Scot-
land — the land of the Lyndsays.

Between these two another feudal power was, however,
consolidating itself. A generation earlier, Alexander
Seton had married the heiress of the Cjordons, who had
considerable estates on the border. The Regent Albany
gave them a tract of land called Strathbogie, lying in the
barren slopes between the Highlands and the flat eastern
districts of the north. There is an expression applied in
Scotland to aggrandising landowners that they "birse
yont," or press out^vards. The Seton-Gordons "birsed
yont," until in the end they superseded the influence of
the earldom of Ross, and the Gordon was called "The
Cock of the North." A great step onwards was taken by
the generation at the period we have reached. The laird
of Strathbogie and of several other estates was created
Earl of Huntly. At this juncture King James made him
lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and intrusted to him
the royal cause in the north. With great goodwill to such
work he undertook to deal with Crawfurd. The two
houses were thoroughly at feud, and the head of each had
fallen in a recent contest very characteristic of the times.
It was with David, the third Earl of Crawfurd, that
Douglas made his " band." It appears to have been Ken-
nedy, Bishop of St Andrews — an able politician related to
the young king, and much in his confidence — ^who dis-
covered the band, and discussed it with the other advisers
of the crown as a dangerous business. Crawfurd, taking
umbrage at the bishop's conduct, gathered his followers,
and, in the words of a chronicler, set them "to make
hereship upon the bishop's lands, and if they might, to
apprehend himself, to keep him quick in prison, within
irons, quhill further advertisement." This charge they ful-
filled, and they berried not only the bishop's lands, but also
the " haill lands adjacent thereto, and brought great preys
of goods out of Fyfe into Angus." ^ They did not catch

* Pitscottie, 32, 33.

STRUGGLE WITH TllE DOUGLAS, 1452-54- 4-7

the bishop, however, who remained within his strong
castle, whence he attacked the invader with his awn
spiritual weapon, and " cursed " or excommunicated him,
" whilk," as the chronicler says, " the earl highly vilipended
as a thing of no strength, with no dread either of God or
man.*' What speedily followed on the cursing, however,
impressed upon others that it had "strength.** The great
Abbey of Arbroath appointed a member of the house of
Crawfurd, as their most powerful neighbour, to be the
justiciar or feudal judge over their dominions. The
"master" or eldest son held the office. The monks com-
plained that he used too freely the privilege of enjo3dng
their hospitality by quartering on them large bands of his
followers, not always of the most orderly or temperate
habits, and that he was altogether " uneasy to the con-
vent.*' Accordingly he was dismissed from office, and a
justiciar was chosen from the next in power among the
neighbouring families — the Ogilvies. But the master
retained possession, and a dispute arose, which drew to a
battie near Arbroath. Douglas sent a party of his Clydes-
dale men to help the Lyndsays, in terms of his bond. It
happened at the time that the Earl of Huntly was a guest
of a chief of the Ogilvies at Inverquharity, where he had
accepted of hospitality on his way to Strathbogie. By the
custom of the day he was bound to take up his entertain-
ers* quarrel, and join with such followers as he had in the
coming battle.^ There his son was slain, and he had to
flee for his life. The I-,yndsays were victors, but at a
heavy loss. It is said that the earl came up to stay the
conflict, but he got his death-wound from an Ogilvie. It
was noticed among men that this came to pass exactly on
the first anniversary of the berrying of the bishop's lands.
When he was dead " no man durst earth him " till Bishop
Kennedy took off the curse.*

^ It was " ane ancient custom amang the Scottishmen, that where-
soever they happen to lodge, they defend their hosts from all hurt,
even to the shedding of their blood and losing of their lives for them,
if need be, so long as their meat is undigested in their stomachs,*' —
dted as by Bishop Leslie, Lives of the Lyndsays, i. 128b

* Lives of the Lyndsays, i. 129*31.

428 TAMES II.

His son and successor, Alexander I.yndsay,who inherited
his friendships and quarrels, was called Earl Beardie, and
also the Tiger Earl, both for personal characteristics that
may easily be divined. It was with him that Huntly had
now to deal. They fought an obstinate battle near
Brechin. Crawfiird was deserted by the I^ird of Balna-
moon, who " was captain of the axmen, in whose hands
the hail hope of victory stood that day." The Lyndsays
were consequently defeated, and the Tiger Earl, as he
fled to Finhaven Castle, was heard to say that he would
readily abide seven years in hell to have such a victory
as Hundy had won that day.^ He afterwards made
personal submission to the king, and was spared his life
and part of his estates on a promise of loyalty, which he
kept.

Thus the formidable alliance was broken ; but James,
the brother of the murdered Earl of Douglas, reigned in
his stead, and put the king at formal defiance as a per-
jured man and murderer, by a writing nailed on the door
of the Parliament House. With a great army the king
marched through his territory, and seized Douglas Castle ;
yet was it deemed not wise to drive him to extremities.
Considerable sacrifices were demanded of him ; yet it
was observable that these should not be made by parlia-
mentary forfeiture, but by treaty. The document bears
date the 24th of August 1452. By it the earl engages
to make no claims, by law or otherwise, on the earldom
of Wigton and the lands of Stewarton, and engages to
abandon all feuds or quarrels that might arise out of by-
gone events.^

Still the contest was not over. Douglas showed the
secret power he possessed by marrying his brother's
widow, and again uniting the divided domains which had
fallen to different heirs. This was a thing not done in a
comer. If a Papal dispensation had been necessary to
enable his brother to marry the cousin of both, it was
doubly necessary to legitimate a marriage with that bro-

1 Pitscottie, 106, 107.

* Quoted, Appx. P. F. Tjftler's History, toL uL

STRUGGLE WITH THE DOUGLAS, 1452-54. 429

ther's wdow ; yet the king, for his own reasons, did not
oppose the procuring of the dispensation.

This was followed apparently by a knowledge that
Douglas was in league with the English Yorkists ; and on
one ground or other the time had come when it was neces-
sary to court the issue of a battle. A large force was
raised — the chroniclers say of forty thousand men. and
they give the same as the number collected by Douglas.
The royal army besieged and took his Castle of Abercorn
in Linlithgowshire — that one of his strongholds which was
farthest from his great border territory. Douglas was
marching with his army through Lanarkshire to meet the
king's forces at Abercorn, and, if possible, save his castle.
A battle seemed inevitable; but, either through proffers
held out to them or on their own view of the matter, the
Hamiltons and several other of his followers would not
measure swords with the king, and his army was so dimin-
ished that he dared not fight A new power, too, was
raised against him in a rival house of Douglas.

The first Earl of Douglas had for his third wife the
Countess of Angus. They had a son who succeeded to
this title, while his eldest brother became Earl of Douglas.
The house of Angus gradually enlarged its possessions,
and at the time of the contest with the elder house they
possessed the great stronghold of Tantallon, at the open-
ing of the Firth of Forth. Angus had been at feud with
the elder branch of the family, whose followers had re-
cently exasperated him by a plundering raid on his lands.
He was appointed leader of the royal army. If it was the
tradition of his royal descent that attached any of the fol-
lowers to the banner of Douglas, Angus partook in the
distinction, and he could be supported without a direct
contest with the cro>>'n. However it was, many of the
border houses joined Angus. They met and defeated the
army of the adversary at Arkinholm. Two brothers of
the Douglas commanded in it : one, who bore the title of
Earl of Ormond, was taken and beheaded ; the other, the
Earl of Moray, fell in the battle. Douglas made a last
effort by getting his ally, the Earl of Ross, to invade the
west coast; but it merely served to enrich the Highland-

430 JAMES 11.

ers with plunder, and the great Douglas had to flee into
£ngland

In the month of August of this year, 1454, an Act of
forfeiture was passed against what remained of the house
of Douglas— the earl, his mother, and the only brother
then alive, Douglas of Balveny. A vast district was thus
forfeited to the crown, and more lordships were given
away during the ensuing five years than in any similar
period. The greater part of the spoil, however, went to
Angus, whose race was, as we shall afterwards find, to
rebuild the house of Douglas.

Parliament took the opportunity of this great accession
of property to the crown to pass an Act for restraining the
dispersal of the crown estates by gifts to subjects. Cer-
tain lordships and castles were to be inalienably annexed
to the crown. These were — Ettrick Forest, the lordship
of Galloway, the Castle of Edinburgh, the royal domains
in Lothian, Stirling Castle and the royal domain surround-
ing it, the Castle of Dumbarton, with the lands of Car-
dross and Roseneath, the earldom of Fife, with the Palace
of Falkland, the earldom of Stratheam, the lordship of
Brechin, with some others of smaller moment and not
readily recognisable by their names.^ In the scanty legis-
lation of the earlier part of this reign, there is another
Act relating to landed property of far more moment,
though affecting interests at the very opposite end of the
social scale. We have seen that from a very early ])eriod
the law affected the protection of the humbler class of
feudal rights. Subsequent Acts had a similar tendency ;
but in the Parliament of 1449 it was distinctly enacteid,
** for the safety and favour of the poor people that labour
the ground," that when they hold leases, these shall re-
main good although the ownership or lordship of the land
should change hands.* While peaceful industry was thus
encouraged, the legislative war against vagrancy was re-
newed in a shape which gives an insight into social pecu-
liarities of the time. The preamble or purpose of one of
these Acts is "for the away-putting of somers, feigned

1 Act. Pari., ii. 42. « Ibid, il. 35.

PARLIAMENT, 1454. 43 1

fools, bards, and suchlike others, runners about" The
somers are described with an ahemative as " overlayers **
and " masterful beggars." An utter contrast to the modem
notions of a beggar comes out in the means by which they
are to be identified, which is, by their wandering over the
country with horses and hounds: these, with whatever
other property they are found to possess, are to be for-
feited, and they themselves imprisoned. The other class
of persons dealt with in the Act are those " that make
them fools that are not" — that is, pretend to be fools;
and with these, in a manner that the lovers of romance
may feel to be irreverent, are coupled, " bards and such-
like others, runners about" Nothing is said about these
having horses and hounds. Still it is supposed possible
that they may have some wherewithal. They are to be
kept in ward or prison so long as they have any goods of
their own to live upon. Failing that, it is provided —
with the "excellent brevity" of the Scots Acts, though
not with entire clearness of sequence — " that their ears be
nayled to the Trone, or any other tree, and cuttet off, and
banished the country. And if thereafter they be founden
again, that they be hanged." ^

Scotland stands alone among nations in the way in
which her public documents deal with war and diplomacy.
Other nations may look out for enemies in any quarter,
Scotland knows of but one — "our enemy of England;" so
that all legislative provisions regarding war, whether by
way of defence or attack, have a singleness of purpose
about them — ^they are directed against England. The
precept of the sages, that the years of peace should be
occupied in preparing for war, was followed pretty effec-
tively in this reign. The method of arming the feudal
force was revised and brought up to the knowledge of the
day. The great new arm, artillery, was just beginning to
excel the old mechanical contrivances for the casting of
missiles, and had to be dealt with. Thus, while every
man worth twenty merks is to have a jack with iron
sleeves, with sword, buckler, and bow and quiver, or, ii

^ Scots Acts, iL 36.

432 JAMES II.

he be unskilled in archery, an axe and targe, it is thought
needful that the king request the great barons to have
each a cart of war, " each cart to have two guns, and each
gun two chambers, with the other graith, and a cunning
man to shoot them ; " ** and if they have no craft in the
shooting of them, as now they may learn or the time come
that will be needful to have them."^ An organisation
was enacted for "bales,** or beacon-fires, whenever an
English army should threaten the border. The bales, and
the force they are to represent, are set forth in a very
business-like way. " A bale is warning of their coming,
what power tliat ever they be " — that is, the lighter of the
beacon knows nothing more but that an English force is
stirring. Two beacons are to indicate that there is an
army really coming to the border : " four bales, ilk ane
beside other, and all at once, as four candles, shall be
suthfast knowledge that they are of great power and
means;" and these beacons are to be lighted up from
height to height until the warning is seen across the Firth
of Forth, so that "all may see them, and come to the
defence of the land."^ These preparations were for the
future. Through renewal of the truces there had been
peace with England, in so far that any contests occurring
were to be counted as border raids rather than national
wars. The Douglas was entertained and pensioned in
England; and with the old enemy of his house, the
Percy, he made an inroad. He was met and defeated
by his rival kinsman, Angus. It was laid to the charge
of Douglas that, before the restoration of Henry VI.,
the old claim of superiority over Scotland was renewed
by England ; but it was a mere casual afiair of v/ords,
which scarcely went so far as to make a diplomatic con-
troversy.

In fact, the independence of Scotland was at this time
largely helped by quarrels in which the country did not
require to take a part. The Wars of the Roses in Eng-
land were in their most hopeless and disastrous stage.
It was a time when an able and ambitious ruler might

* Act. Pari, ii. 45. * Ibid., i'^ ^\^

EFFECT OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES, 1454-60. 433

have followed up a bold policy for Scotland. The temp-
tation was strong. According to the chroniclers, offei^
were made not only to restore Berwick and Roxburgh to
the Scots crown, but to make over to it the old disputed
territories north of the Humber, as the reward of earnest
and effective assistance. One chronicler, however, says,
with much circumstantiality of detail, that the offer came
from the Duke of York, who had an army in the north —
while another brings it from King Henry.^

It was perhaps well for the future of Scotland that her
Government did not throw itself at this juncture into either
cause. The forces opposed to each other were too great
for the intervention of Scotland to rule the issue, and alli-
ance with the losing cause would be disastrous. Mean«
while, the active spirits in England had their hands full ;
and the annexation of Scotkmd — a notion never quite
abandoned in England — was a project to be at all events
postponed.

It is not unnatural, looking to the condition of England,
to find an indistinctness in the national policy of Scotlana
at this time. The tendency was to help the actual sov-
ereign on the throne, Henry VI. ; but though his name
remains at this period at the head of the chapters in the
histories as King of England, his authority was suspended,
and a sincere ally could not, in fighting for him, be sure of
actually serving his cause. It is said, indeed, that when
the King of Scots, as he did, gathered a large army and
crossed the border, he was told that he did Henry's cause
no good — the people disliked a Scots invasion in itself,
and nothing would compensate for the unpopularity of
countenancing such a thing. It is certain that a large

^ Pitscottie (151) makes it part of a tedious speech by a Yorkist
ambassador. Bishop Leslie, on the other hand, is equally distinct in
tilling how King Henry promised ** to restore unto the King of Scot-
land the lands of Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, and other
sheriffdoms, whilk the King of Scotland had of bisfore, and been with-
hadden from him divers years, part of which promises were accepted
by the King of Scotland, and confirmed by treaties and contracts
made, sealed, and interchanged betwixt the twa princes in the year
of God 1458." — Leslie's History, 3a

VOL. II. 2 E

434 JAMES 11.

Scots army threatened England, and a large English army
threatened Scotland, yet that neither of them made serious
war, or left the old marks of an invasion. The Scots, how-
ever, had still an object which was independent of parties
in England — ^to clear the English out of Scotland. The
enemy still had the great town and fortress of Berwick,
and farther within the country they had the Castle of
Roxburgh. Here it was resolved to begin, and the king
himself conducted the siege.

He received there an unexpected ally in John, the Lord
of the Isles, who was in one of the conciliatory and sub-
missive fits which in his dynasty alternated with defiance.
After the submission to James I., the lord of that period
obtained that coveted earldom of Ross, for which his father
fought the battle of Harlaw. We now find the dynasty
acting the independent prince again, and granting charters
to heads of families in the north. The alliance with
Douglas was a great opportunity for them ; and we have
seen that after the cause was broken on the border, the
Lord of the Isles made himself sharply felt on the west
coast. He was afterwards desirous of peace, and made
offers of submission, which were not accepted, because, as
it is said, he did not come in person and seek pardon in
abject shape, like his father : the result of that affair — an
imprisonment in Tantallon — ^was not perhaps a precedent
to his liking. He got such encouragement, however, as
made him believe that it was sound policy to help the king
in his project; and so he came to the siege with "ane great
army of men, all armed in the Highland fashion, with hal-
bershownes, bows, and axes ; and promised to the king,
if he pleased to pass any farther into the bounds of Eng-
land, that he and his company should pass ane large mile
before the host, and take upon them the press and dint of
the battle." ^ He was very serviceable in sending out par-
ties to forage in England for the army, or, as it is put, "to
spoil and herrie the country " ^ — an occupation to which
the Lowland forces were less accustomed than they used
to be.

^ Pitscottie (whO| by the way, calls him Donald). 158. ' Ibid., 159.

ENGLAND AND TIIK HIGHLANDS, 1455-60. 435

The resistance was obstinate, and the siege threatened
to be a long one. This is the first memorable occasion
— and it became only too memorable— of the use of artil-
lery by Scots troops. There was a passion for making
guns of enormous calibre — far too large for the imperfect
mechanical science of the day to render them safe to those
who handled them. A specimen of such guns may yet be
seen in Mons Meg, in Edinburgh Castle, and there are
several of them in the Netherlands towns. There was in
the siege-train one of these monsters, which had been
bought in Flanders by James I., but hardly put to use.
The king was curious to see this gun worked — " more
curious than became the majesty of ane king."^ His
curiosity cost him his life ; and the method in which it did
so is distinctly told. The cannon was made, after the
practice of the time, of bars of iron, girded into a tube,
with iron rings or hoops. These were too large to keep
the bars quite close, so that oaken wedges were driven in
between the bars and the rings. The expansion caused
by the discharge of the gun drove these out, and one of
them killed the king, while Angus, who stood beside him,
was wounded. So fell James IL, on the 3d of August
1460, in the thirtieth year of his age.

^ Pitscottie, 159.

END or THE SECOND VOLUME.

ntnrrRu by william blackwood and sons, sdinbvhKi